![\"\"](\"http:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/eight_col_133266803_l-300x188.jpg\")
<\/p>\nDramatically rising food prices are leading to a record number of families facing dire situations, according to a community non-profit organisation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Latest figures show food prices\u00a0were 7.6 percent higher in March than the year before – the biggest annual increase in more than a decade.<\/p>\n
Prices for fruit and vegetables were 18 percent higher.<\/p>\n
A community non-profit organisation offering budgeting advice is handling record requests for help from struggling families.<\/p>\n
Ng\u0101 T\u0101ngata Microfinance chief executive Natalie Vincent said rising living costs were causing inquiries for loans to soar.<\/p>\n
Non-profit lending had shot up from 30 inquiries a month for help before Covid-19, to 500 a month.<\/p>\n
“People just cannot live on what they are receiving,” Vincent said.<\/p>\n
“[For] the people that we work with – this is a survival issue.”<\/p>\n
A new base of clients were are finding themselves in severe debt, with people taking out loans for essential costs rather than overconsumption.<\/p>\n
“We’re seeing a new base of clients,” Vincent told\u00a0Morning Report.<\/i><\/p>\n
“It’s actually people taking out debt to live.<\/p>\n
“We’re encouraging people to reach out for help but if there’s not enough support for them, we’ve got a real problem.”<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/eight_col_127331137_l-300x200.jpg\")
Prices for fruit and veggies were up 18 percent.<\/p><\/div>\n
Finance Minister Grant Robertson told\u00a0First Up<\/i>\u00a0the rising cost of food was a global problem linked to disrupted supply chains as New Zealanders faced the highest annual rise in food prices in just over 10 years.<\/p>\n
He said some of the drivers of soaring food prices, such as closed ports in China, were out of his hands.<\/p>\n
“I’ve seen similar increases in other countries around the world, so this genuinely is a global problem,” Robertson said.<\/p>\n
“As a result of that, the solutions to it are difficult for New Zealand on our own.<\/p>\n
“We’ve got supply chain constraints, China’s got lockdown so they’re closing their ports.”<\/p>\n
Robertson said the government was working on supermarket competition.<\/p>\n
“We’ve got recommendations from the Commerce Commission that we really are pushing in on now to make sure New Zealanders do get as fair a deal as possible.”<\/p>\n
Source : RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dramatically rising food prices are leading to a record number of families facing dire situations, according to a community non-profit organisation. Latest figures show food prices\u00a0were 7.6 percent higher in March than the year before – the biggest annual increase in more than a decade. Prices for fruit and vegetables were 18 percent higher. A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[51,270,271],"class_list":["post-1479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nz-news","tag-economy","tag-food","tag-prices"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1479"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1483,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479\/revisions\/1483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}