Iraq COVID-19 Food Security Monitor Bi-Weekly Update - Issue 27, 2 February 2021

Due to the economic crisis, the government has been struggling with distributing payments to farmers who have marketed their production (wheat, barley, corn) to government silos and state companies in 2020. This topic has become a priority in the parliamentary debate on the fiscal budget of 2021.The economic crisis has also affected the food ration distribution under the Public Distribution System (PDS).

The national price of the four main food commodities has leveled post Iraqi dinar devaluation. The highest rate of increase compared to pre-devaluation was in vegetable oil prices by 36%, followed by wheat flour price by 16%, and 10% increase for both rice and sugar prices.

WFP mVAM data showed that approximately 2.6 million people in Iraq have insufficient food consumption, an increase of roughly 143,000 people compared to the last week of January, with Babylon leading with highest number of the population with insufficient food consumption.