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In the meantime, swine fever is jumping borders, with neighbouring Vietnam culling almost 6 million pigs to prevent the spread of the disease. It hasn’t showed up yet in Vietnam’s CPI — partly because high food prices a year ago have skewed the statistical base — but the impact likely will be reflected in coming months, said Alex Holmes, an Asia economist at Capital Economics Ltd. in Singapore. Live pig prices in November are up almost 30 per cent from a year earlier, according to an industry group.

India

In India, where spikes in the cost of onions have sparked social unrest in years past, a 26 per cent year-on-year rise in vegetable prices pushed October headline inflation above the Reserve Bank’s threshold of 4 per cent for the first time in 15 months.

That runs up against a central bank intent on easing policy to spur growth. Data due Friday is likely to show India’s gross domestic product grew 4.5 per cent in the July-September quarter, its slowest pace since early 2013, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists.

The latest Bloomberg survey shows consumer price inflation expected to peak at 4.8 per cent in the October-December period, before tapering off.

Turkey

Food inflation hovered near 30 per cent in the first quarter and has remained above 15 per centfor much of the year, due to a currency crisis in August 2018 coupled with supply-chain issues and a heavy reliance on natural irrigation. The government has taken to buying produce directly from farmers and selling it in cities, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan denouncing alleged price-gougers as traitors and terrorists. Recent droughts in grain-producing provinces raise concerns about possible supply constraints next year, with the central bank expecting food inflation at 11 per cent by the end of 2020.

Africa

A regional drought has curbed food output in some southern African countries. Driven by increases in the cost of corn products, food-price growth has pushed Zambian inflation to a three-year high, and monthly food inflation in Zimbabwe has reached almost 50 per cent as supplies dwindle. In Nigeria, the price of imported rice has surged 7.3 per cent since August after President Muhammadu Buhari ordered border closures, partly to counter widespread food smuggling.

Bloomberg.com