LIBERIA – Liberian residents are facing soaring prices and scarcity of eggs, a major source of their proteins, with a single egg currently being sold at the same price as a cup of rice.
The residents stated that the price of a single egg retailing at the same price as a cup of rice, the nation’s staple food, is not worth buying.
One of the residents, MaMary, who sells cooked foods as a source of living, vowed not to buy eggs until the prices fall back to their previous cheaper prices considering the high cost of living is still battering her.
“I cannot buy a single egg for L$50.00 when that money can buy me a cup of rice for my children to eat. I will wait for the egg price to reduce before I buy it, but for now, I would rather buy rice than waste my money buying eggs,” said Ma Mary.
Liberian residents used to buy a crate of eggs for US$3.50, but now they are buying it for US$6.50, and they sell it for US$7.00, which is about L$1,000 as stated by headtopics website.
In 2021, Liberia imported US$13.4M in eggs, becoming the 55th largest importer of Eggs in the world. In the same year, eggs were the 39th most imported product in Liberia.
United Commodities Inc. (UCI), a sole distributor of LAP (Liberian American Poultry) has said it is intending to reduce the price of eggs on the Liberian market by making available eggs to 90% of egg’s consumers by the end of April this year.
The company has established the Liberian/American Poultry farm in Kiafa Town, Klay District, Bomi County, having more than 170,000 chickens.
UCl highlighted that the entity can boost the production of thousands of eggs daily, reducing the overreliance on imports which are dictated by global macroeconomics.
For example, the Russo-Ukraine war has drastically affected the prices of eggs through import restrictions and feed prices soaring leaving producers with no choice but to increase the prices of eggs.
On a sad note, Rabobank’s report on global egg prices shows that the price of eggs which has doubled in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same period last year, will remain high throughout 2023, especially in markets heavily impacted by avian flu, high feed costs, and regulatory changes.
Rabobank explains that the inflated cost of living has majorly influenced the rocketing of egg prices as poultry feed costs are high.
According to Rabobank, egg prices used to follow the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation Food Price Index but since 2022, prices have kept rising while food prices have started to drop.
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