Food prices soar more than 50%

In New Zealand, families are finding it much harder to buy everyday foods like rice, bananas, and eggs because prices have jumped a huge 56% in just one year.

A group called World Vision looked into this and found that, while in some places like Australia food is getting cheaper, in New Zealand and some other countries it’s getting a lot more expensive.

This means that for a bunch of basic groceries, people in New Zealand are now paying about $78, when last year it was closer to $50. This isn’t just happening in New Zealand, though. In some countries in Africa, people are facing even bigger price hikes because of tough situations like conflicts and changes in the weather.

Experts say that in New Zealand, part of the reason food costs so much is because of things like big storms hurting crops and not having enough different stores to buy from. They’re saying it’s important to come up with plans to make sure we can still get food even when the weather goes wild or other big challenges come up.

But there’s a bit of good news for New Zealanders. Even though food is more expensive, they don’t have to work as long as people in some other countries to be able to afford it. For example, while someone in New Zealand might work three hours to buy their groceries, in the Central African Republic, it could take more than 25 days of work to buy the same things!

This situation is really tough for families in poorer countries, where buying food can be so hard that kids might go hungry or even miss out on school.