inflation in Argentina grew in April to 109% year on year, the National Statistics Office said today, beating analysts’ forecasts and sparking despair and anger among consumers who are forced to make even greater sacrifices to make ends meet.

In Latin America’s third-largest economy, inflation was 8.4% m/m in April, above forecasts of 7.5%, bringing it to 108.8% y/y.

Rising prices have pushed one in four Argentines below the poverty line. “They have turned us into a country of beggars,” Carlos Andrada, a 60-year-old self-employed man, told Reuters while looking for cheap vegetables at a street market outside Buenos Aires. “You get desperate because you work all your life and (it gets to the point where) it’s hard for you to even buy a tomato or pepper,” he added.

Argentina’s fragile economy, which is facing 12 years of double-digit inflation, has been hit hard by the impact of the recent drought on soybean, corn and wheat exports.