FOOD PRICES AND SEASONALITY - Food Security, Food Prices and Climate Variability - page 119

300

250

200

150

100

50

0

1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013

Year

FIGURE 6.1 Seasonal price dynamics from 1990 to 2012 in Zinder, Niger for retail sorghum, a
widely grown coarse grain (source: data from FAO Price database).

linked with local food production (Brown et al ., 2012; Garg et al ., 2013; Von Braun, 2008).
Multiple variables can affect the production of cereal crops, not just whether or not adequate
rainfall is received. These variables include area planted, insect and animal damage, soil
erosion, soil infertility and damage due to wind among many other factors (Hoogmoed and
Klaij, 1990; Klaij and Hoogmoed, 1993). International food trade, production imbalances
between different areas of a country and limited road networks may also influence the local
prices of food (Brown et al ., 2013; Cutler, 1984; De Waal, 1988; Deaton and Laroque,
1996).
Rural households in most of the Sahel sell grain in order to obtain cash for household
needs ( Jayne and Minot, 1989). Farmers typically sell a portion of their crop on the market
directly after the harvest when the price is low, save a portion for consumption and purchase
food from the market as their own supplies diminish later in the year, usually at a much higher
price. These transactions typically occur within five kilometers of the household's land because
transportation is both expensive and unreliable (Platteau, 1996). Reliance on agriculture as a
primary source of both income and food has led to a fundamental vulnerability to seasonal and
interannual rainfall. Cash income is therefore important because food grown in areas with
adequate rainfall can generally be purchased even if grain cannot be grown locally in some
years.
Farmers fall into two categories of food purchasers: those who purchase by volume , who
buy a greater quantity than the amount they sell, and those who purchase by value , who spend
more money on food than they earn by selling. The common scenario is that prices to pur-
chase grain in many West African rural markets is double in the summer at the peak of the
growing season than it is post-harvest in the late fall. Take a household producing 110 percent