Maradi, Niger – As butchers chop meat, boys push carts of coconuts and fragrant spices entice passersby in the main market of Maradi, Niger’s second-largest city, many residents agree on one thing: life is more expensive this year than last.
A litre of cooking oil that once went for 700 CFA francs ($1.13) now goes for 1,050 CFA ($1.70), says one merchant. Aminu Maman, who sells salt, cowpeas and dried baobab fruit says demand has also drastically reduced for his items. “Almost everything is going up.”
Another merchant, Shamsudin Harouna, says that for locally grown staples like maize and sorghum, “even at the time of harvest, all the cereal items are getting more and more expensive”.
Standing next to a knee-high bucket of peanuts, Harouna says the locally grown staple has risen to 1,300 CFA ($2.10) for three kilogrammes, up from 1,000 last year. He offers up multiple explanations: people crossing the border, just 40 kilometres away, to sell their produce in neighbouring Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy. Or capital-lush wholesalers gobbling up the market before smaller merchants get a chance, leaving remaining supplies low.
And “fertiliser is too expensive”, he adds.
A year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the effects are still being felt across the world as inflated prices eat into the budgets of consumers, government and aid agencies in Niger – one of the world’s poorest countries.
‘Needs are growing’
Before the invasion, Russia exported 16 percent of the world’s supply of fertiliser. Amid the war, it announced export restrictions to prop up domestic supplies. While fertiliser was not targeted by Western sanctions, “shipping companies, as well as Western financing and vessel insurance companies, steered away from Russia amid international financial sanctions and safety concerns,” according to a US government report from the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis.
