DS-08 Agriculture

Food Market Price & Supply Chain Dataset

15 years of weekly wholesale and retail price observations for staple foods across 5 African markets — linked to seasonal rainfall, fuel price indices, and transport cost proxies for food-security forecasting and supply-chain optimisation AI.

This is a synthetic dataset generated from high-quality expert-labelled seed data. All records are algorithmically derived — statistical distributions, inter-field correlations, and annotation characteristics faithfully replicate real-world patterns from the source data, while ensuring no real individual, organisation, or transaction can be identified or reconstructed.

The African Food Market Price & Supply Chain Dataset aggregates 15 years of price monitoring data from wholesale and retail markets in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Senegal — five of the continent's most strategically important food economies. Each record captures the observed price of a specific commodity at a named market on a given date, alongside matched context variables: seasonal rainfall anomaly, national fuel price index, and a transport-cost proxy derived from road-condition and distance data.

Commodities covered include the core staple basket: maize, rice, sorghum, millet, cassava flour, yam, beans, soybean, wheat flour, and palm oil — 10 commodities × 5 countries × roughly 780 weekly observations per series, yielding a dense multi-market panel. Price data are sourced from national food-price monitoring systems (WFP VAM, FEWS NET, national statistics bureaux) and harmonised to USD-per-kg equivalents using contemporaneous exchange rates. Missing weeks are flagged with an imputation method code rather than interpolated silently.

The dataset is designed for time-series forecasting, causal inference (impact of fuel shocks on food prices), and spatial price-transmission modelling. It is structured as a long-format panel compatible with standard econometric and ML time-series libraries (statsmodels, Prophet, Darts, NeuralForecast). A companion GeoJSON file maps market locations for spatial interpolation tasks.

Key Use Cases

Weekly staple food price forecasting for early-warning systems
Fuel and rainfall shock impact modelling on food prices
Spatial price-transmission and market-integration analysis
Food-security alert threshold calibration (IPC Phase triggers)
Supply-chain route optimisation under price and transport volatility
Trader margin and arbitrage opportunity detection
Agri-insurance parametric trigger design based on price indices
National food reserve and strategic stock planning support

Dataset Highlights

Historical Depth
15 years
2010 – 2024 weekly observations
Commodities
10
core staple basket
Markets Covered
5 countries
Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia, Senegal
Price Series
50+
commodity × market combinations

Geographic Coverage

Primary Coverage
Other Regions

Dataset Schema

Each record is one price observation for a commodity at a specific market on a specific date, enriched with matched contextual variables and data quality flags.

Field NameTypeDescriptionNullableExample
observation_id STRING Unique observation identifier No OBS-NGA-LG-20230814-MAIZE
country_code STRING ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code No NG
market_name STRING Name of the monitored wholesale or retail market No Mile 12 Lagos
market_type ENUM Market level: WHOLESALE, RETAIL No WHOLESALE
observation_date DATE Date of price observation (YYYY-MM-DD) No 2023-08-14
commodity ENUM Commodity: MAIZE, RICE, SORGHUM, MILLET, CASSAVA_FLOUR, YAM, BEANS, SOYBEAN, WHEAT_FLOUR, PALM_OIL No MAIZE
price_usd_kg FLOAT Observed price in USD per kilogram No 0.38
price_local_unit FLOAT Price in local currency per standard local unit Yes 350
local_currency STRING ISO 4217 currency code of local price Yes NGN
rainfall_anomaly_pct FLOAT Seasonal rainfall anomaly vs 10-year average (%) Yes -18.4
fuel_price_index FLOAT National fuel price index (base 100 = Jan 2020) Yes 142.7
transport_cost_proxy FLOAT Estimated transport cost from nearest surplus zone (USD/tonne-km) Yes 0.12
data_source ENUM Price monitoring source: WFP_VAM, FEWS_NET, NATIONAL_STAT, FIELD_SURVEY No WFP_VAM
imputation_flag ENUM Data quality: OBSERVED, INTERPOLATED, IMPUTED_MEAN, MISSING No OBSERVED
price_shock_flag BOOLEAN True if price deviates > 2 SD from 4-week rolling average No false

Sample Records

Four representative price observations spanning countries, commodities, and data-quality conditions.

food_price_sample.json
[ { "observation_id": "OBS-NGA-LG-20230814-MAIZE", "country_code": "NG", "market_name": "Mile 12 Lagos", "market_type": "WHOLESALE", "observation_date": "2023-08-14", "commodity": "MAIZE", "price_usd_kg": 0.38, "price_local_unit": 350, "local_currency": "NGN", "rainfall_anomaly_pct": -18.4, "fuel_price_index": 142.7, "transport_cost_proxy": 0.12, "data_source": "WFP_VAM", "imputation_flag": "OBSERVED", "price_shock_flag": false }, { "observation_id": "OBS-ETH-AD-20221107-TEFF", "country_code": "ET", "market_name": "Addis Mercato", "market_type": "WHOLESALE", "observation_date": "2022-11-07", "commodity": "SORGHUM", "price_usd_kg": 0.29, "price_local_unit": 16.5, "local_currency": "ETB", "rainfall_anomaly_pct": 12.1, "fuel_price_index": 118.3, "transport_cost_proxy": 0.09, "data_source": "FEWS_NET", "imputation_flag": "OBSERVED", "price_shock_flag": false }, { "observation_id": "OBS-KEN-NB-20230320-RICE", "country_code": "KE", "market_name": "Nairobi Wakulima", "market_type": "WHOLESALE", "observation_date": "2023-03-20", "commodity": "RICE", "price_usd_kg": 0.74, "price_local_unit": 105, "local_currency": "KES", "rainfall_anomaly_pct": null, "fuel_price_index": 161.2, "transport_cost_proxy": 0.15, "data_source": "NATIONAL_STAT", "imputation_flag": "OBSERVED", "price_shock_flag": true }, { "observation_id": "OBS-SEN-DK-20201130-MILLET", "country_code": "SN", "market_name": "Dakar Sandaga", "market_type": "RETAIL", "observation_date": "2020-11-30", "commodity": "MILLET", "price_usd_kg": 0.22, "price_local_unit": null, "local_currency": "XOF", "rainfall_anomaly_pct": -5.2, "fuel_price_index": 100, "transport_cost_proxy": null, "data_source": "WFP_VAM", "imputation_flag": "IMPUTED_MEAN", "price_shock_flag": false } ]
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