Food price induced inflation

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Inflation management and poverty alleviation strategies need to address the core issue of food price induced by inflation. The prices of food grains should be decreased or kept stable. Availability of cheaper food grain must cover the greatest number of the poor. The government has provided wider social safety nets this year to provide food grain at much below the market rate to the poor. All of these programmes need to be not only very efficiently run but it is important to try and expand them to include a greater number of the poor than was conceived earlier. This objective can be met now that the World Bank and other donors are associated with the social safety net programmes.
The government must also keep on improving its operations to deliver inputs for agricultural production to farmers in time and at affordable prices. The various subsidies to farmers should be similarly maintained and improved upon. These activities would be of great value in keeping production costs low, which in turn can be expected to be reflected in the reduced price of food grains in markets, thereby putting a brake on the mounting food price inflation.
Aminur Rashid
Segunbagicha, Dhaka