Guimaras’ food inflation soars in 6 straight months

The year-on-year inflation or the annual rate of change in price levels of food in Guimaras soared for six straight months starting at 0.5% in June 2021 to 4.2% in November.

The spike was pushed by the faster annual increment on the prices of the six heavily weighted food commodity items, according to data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority.

The food commodity items that recorded higher markups in November 2021 over 2020 prices and contributed to the swift movement of inflation rate were:

• Meat at 15.5% from –4% a year ago
• Fish at 11.1% from 3.8%
• Milk, Cheese, and Eggs at 3% from 1.7%
• Vegetables at 16.4% from 4.4% in November 2020
• Sugar, Jam, Honey, Chocolate and Confectionery at 4% from –1.9%, and
• Food Products N.E.C at 10.3% from –0.4% a year ago.

Comparing inflation trends in Guimaras for 13 months from November 2020 to November 2021, the current 4.2% inflation rate is the fastest – 3.8 percentage points faster than 0.4% inflation in November 2020 and 0.1 percentage points faster than October 2021.

The last two months of 2020 saw rising inflation, from 0.4% in November 2020 to a meager increment of 0.5% in December. (See Figure 1)

Meanwhile, inflation in the province of Guimaras in 2021 started at a lower rate of –0.5% in January then jumped to 2. % in February then slid to 0.1% in March until it further plopped to –0.6% in April 2021, the slowest rate for eleven months of 2021.

From then, inflation moved a bit faster from 0.5% in June and escalated until it hit 4.2% in November 2021.

MONTH-ON-MONTH FOOD INFLATION

The monthly rate of change in the prices of food commodities in November 2021 rose to 1.6 percent from the -0.5 percent a month ago, fueled by the faster price movements of six food commodity items, namely:

• Bread and Cereals at 0.3% from –1.5% in October 2021
• Meat at 1.5% from –0.2%
• Fish at 1.6% from 0.4 percent a month ago
• Milk, Cheese, and Eggs at 0.3% from –0.6%
• Vegetables at 11.1% from 1.9%
• Food Products N.E.C at 2.6% from 0.8% in October 2021,

Despite the increment in the monthly food inflation in November 2021, four food commodity items managed to deflate, namely:

• Other Cereals, Flour, Cereal Preparation, Bread, Pasta and Other Bakery Products at 0.2% from 0.4%
• Oils and Fats at –1.2% from –0.1%,
• Fruits at –1.8% from 0.6% in October 2021, and
• Sugar, Jam, Honey, Chocolate and Confectionery at 0.3% from 0.9%

As shown in Figure 2, the 3.2% inflation rate in February 2021 was the fastest food inflation for 13 months which soared by 2.9 percentage points from a low of 0.3% in January, due to the price increments of all food commodity items.

The second-highest food inflation was recorded in the month of November 2021 at 1.6 percent.