Prior to moving into the findings, the author made the descriptive statistics analysis, in order to provide insight on the individual behavior of the variables Indeed the results of the descriptive statistics analysis suggest that, the roots price were the leading category of the international food prices index, accounting for 23.8% of the total index of IFP, followed by fish at 17.7% and cereals at 13.6%.. Overall, the international price indexes of the different items considered in the overall index computation exhibited a high degree of uniformity. Nevertheless, there were also some important disparities between the price indexes of these items. While the table (2) displays the results of the descriptive statistics analysis of the different categories of international foods indexes, table 3) presents the results of the descriptive statistics analysis of some macroeconomic fundamental included in the study as well as the remaining variables.
5. CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS
The research aimed to achieve three primary objectives: (1) establish a novel and all-encompassing food demand system for Zimbabwe by utilizing data obtained from the present household survey; (2) evaluate the impact of food price fluctuations on the overall welfare of households poverty and the country tariffs; and (3) determine the extent to which alterations can be attributed to modifications in trade and agricultural policy. The Generalized least squared regression analysis was applied on time series data sourced from 1990 to 2023, to account for error autocorrelation as well as heterochedasticity. The findings support an important impact of international food price influence of the consumers’ welfare, poverty, and tariffs. However, the magnitude and sign of the impact differs according to the type of independent variable, and sometimes across the components of the IFD index .The findings indicate that Zimbabwe demand for most food commodities is highly responsive to fluctuations in price. The article presents work provides preliminary insights into the nature of Zimbabwe food demand.
The implications of high international food prices on household poverty and consumer welfare are far-reaching. Not only do they prevent households from accessing an adequate and nutritious diet Acemoglu, D., Johnson, S., & Robinson, J. A. (2005), but they also impact education, health, and overall quality of life. Children from homes where there is food insecurity are more inclined to experience malnutrition, which may have long-term health effects and impair cognitive development.
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