From Singapore and Hong Kong to Malaysia, Philippines to India, how inflation and rising food costs are changing the face of hunger

As world food prices hit their highest level for a decade, Asians are feeling the pinch in ways unique to their economies

In Singapore, food banks are busy; in Malaysia, meat is off the menu for many. In India, lamp oil is used for cooking and in the Philippines, the cost of your pizza could feed 150 people

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In richer Asian economies, like Singapore and Hong Kong, those struggling from rising food prices don’t always fit traditional profiles. Photo: Reuters

Dewey Sim,Amrit Dhillon,Ushar DanieleandRaissa Robles

Published: 8:30am, 22 Nov 2021Updated: 7:55am, 6 Dec 2021

Extreme weather. Swine flu. Rising energy prices. Labour shortages. Bottlenecks and supply chain disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic. All these factors have helped drive the price of food to its highest level for a decade.

World food prices last month hit their highest level since 2011, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations. The index was up 3 per cent from September and an astonishing 31.3 per cent from October 2020. Driving the increase were vegetable oils and cereals, themselves made more expensive by reduced harvests in major exporters such as Canada, Russia, the United States and Malaysia, shortages in migrant labour and spikes in the price of crude oil.

Emerging countries are the worst hit, with parts of South America as well as Russia and Turkey experiencing food price inflation in the double digits, but even the richest OECD nations are experiencing average rises of 4.5 per cent.

In Asia, many economies have avoided the worst of the pain – or at least appeared to. But the varied nature of the economies of Asia – which span from developed Singapore and Hong Kong to upper middle-income Malaysia, emerging and developing India and the developing Philippines – means each is affected in a unique way.

In some of the richest places, the signs are shoppers pulling their purse strings, or food banks noticing an uptick in visitors. In some of the poorest places, people use the oil from their lamps to cook their dinner, and the price of a high-street pizza could feed 150 people.

If there is a theme common to all it is that when prices rise, it is the poorest who pay dearest.

This Week in Asia’s reporters take a look at the mood on the ground in five very different economies.