Maize
The next food in the analysis is maize which is the second most frequent food in the dataset.
Unlike rice, there is not a significant increase or decrease in the price. Though there is a large spike from 2002 to 2003.
As for inflation, there is a symmetric curve similar to rice meaning the overall price for maize has been stable for the last decade.
Since maize is not as universal of food as rice, we do not have data for all regions. Additionally, there is not a consistency of time for each region. For Sub-Saharan Africa, there is an almost identical spike from 2002 to 2003 and is the cause of the world wide spike the world wide maize plot. This spike was caused by a Southern African drought that lasted from 2002 to about 2005. The crisis affected mainly Malawi, Zambia, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Swaziland and part of Mozambique World Health Organization. There is data for all six of these countries Additionally the World Food Program (WFP) estimates that more than 2.6 million people were affected by the food security crisis USAid.
Countries with a noticeably higher price for maize are South Sudan, Nigeria, and Guinea-Bissau. After 2006 Guinea-Bissau saw a drastic decrease in harvest yield which would account for the higher pricesKnema. The reason for the decrease is likely due to climate change. The high prices in South Sudan can be justified by famines that have affected south Sudan since 2001. Currently, South Sudan is recovering from a famine that hit early 2017. Also, a conflict between rebels and the government was in action from 2003 to 2005, this was known as The Darfur conflictWater For Sudan.
By looking at the inflation for each region we see that Sub_Sahara has the most outliers, but East Asia and Pacific has a larger quartile range. This is interesting because after research there has been a big push for maize farming in Asia. After the Philippines’ success with genetically modified corn. Vietnam and Indonesia we close to follow. The Hindu Business Line. The reason for the push is an increase in domestic animal feed demand. This instability of price is likely caused by the shift from imported maize to local maize.
Countries that have an unstable inflation are Myramar and South Sudan. South Sudan instability is caused by the issues discussed above. As for Myanmar, this is interesting because maize production has increased steadily since 2000 Knoema.
| country | avg_infla | stdev |
|---|---|---|
| Somalia | 32.9654182 | 159.961581 |
| Timor-Leste | 8.8774900 | 54.147744 |
| Ethiopia | 6.0840204 | 156.869190 |
| Central African Republic | 5.4651321 | 44.107040 |
| South Sudan | 5.1929429 | 31.937420 |
| Myanmar | 4.8295550 | 38.275683 |
| Malawi | 3.8971276 | 25.973584 |
| Swaziland | 3.5054968 | 35.014924 |
| Kenya | 3.4847857 | 88.183849 |
| Tajikistan | 2.8993300 | 24.558702 |
| Cote d’Ivoire | 2.5058021 | 22.797042 |
| Uganda | 2.1519224 | 20.810455 |
| Kyrgyzstan | 2.0670293 | 17.806692 |
| Zambia | 2.0632366 | 20.769831 |
| Ghana | 1.9474782 | 16.629214 |
| Mozambique | 1.8051547 | 17.985385 |
| Democratic Republic of the Congo | 1.7799060 | 19.567411 |
| Rwanda | 1.7240946 | 19.036181 |
| Benin | 1.5445521 | 16.644381 |
| Gambia | 1.5273052 | 18.398375 |
| Chad | 1.3621964 | 16.665949 |
| United Republic of Tanzania | 1.3070225 | 15.836546 |
| Costa Rica | 1.1862874 | 8.809701 |
| Nigeria | 0.9834088 | 14.937338 |
| Haiti | 0.9492058 | 13.327527 |
| Panama | 0.7967550 | 5.751966 |
| Zimbabwe | 0.7934999 | 12.691456 |
| Cameroon | 0.7432412 | 12.253941 |
| Senegal | 0.6825636 | 11.709557 |
| Colombia | 0.6728231 | 11.198223 |
| Burkina Faso | 0.5975514 | 10.959116 |
| El Salvador | 0.5577005 | 10.570930 |
| Niger | 0.5443080 | 10.638372 |
| Mali | 0.5019097 | 10.030858 |
| Honduras | 0.4673155 | 11.468833 |
| Guatemala | 0.4528838 | 7.339666 |
| Peru | 0.3700926 | 3.879289 |
| Lesotho | 0.1941655 | 5.029687 |
| Guinea-Bissau | 0.0303727 | 11.701285 |
