Using crowd-sourced data for real-time monitoring of food prices during the COVID-19 pandemic: Insights from a pilot project in northern Nigeria

The COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting food supply chains all over the world and threatens food security, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, but detailed and timely data are often missing for targeted policy interventions. Based on evidence from a pilot project in Nigeria, we illustrate how a digital platform for crowdsourcing price data is capable of providing validated real-time, high frequency and spatially varying information on the evolution of commodity prices. Price data are contributed by volunteer citizens in two states of northern Nigeria, through a mobile phone app, and go through a robust quality process developed in algorithms before being made available in real-time. The data show that during the period of COVID-19 related restrictions, the prices for staple commodities such as rice (i.e. local and imported) and maize (white and yellow) increased considerably (by up to 160% for rice and even more for maize compared to prices reported in the same period last year). Geo-referenced distance travelled to the market by data contributors, illustrate how mobility restrictions affected effective distances travelled by consumers. Combining the price data with a spatial richness index grid, provides a tool for a rapid spatial identification of food insecurity risks among the most vulnerable groups in society.

ADEWOPO Julius;  SOLANO HERMOSILLA Gloria;  COLEN Liesbeth;  MICALE Fabio; 

2022-05-03

ELSEVIER

JRC121667

2211-9124 (online),   

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221191242100033X,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC121667,   

10.1016/j.gfs.2021.100523 (online),