Global food prices fall for 12 consecutive months – FAO
Global food prices dropped for a 12th consecutive month in March, as a result of strong supplies, limited import demand and as grains continue to flow largely unimpeded from Ukraine and Russia, the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has said.
The FAO Food Price Index (FFPI) is a measure of the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities.
It consists of the average of five commodity group price indices weighted by the average export shares of each of the groups
The FAO’s food-price index declined 2.1% from the previous month to its lowest level since July 2021, led largely by strong falls in grain prices.
“The FAO Food Price Index* (FFPI) averaged 126.9 points in March 2023, down 2.8 points (2.1 percent) from February, marking the twelfth consecutive monthly decline since reaching its peak one year ago,” the FAO said on its website.
“During the past twelve months since March 2022, the index has fallen by as much as 32.8 points (20.5 percent). The decline in the index in March was led by drops in the cereal, vegetable oil and dairy price indices, while those of sugar and meat increased,” it added.
The figures suggest a long-running decline in food prices is continuing, further helping to undercut global inflation pressures and ease concerns about hunger and food security, which are particularly weighing on some of the world’s poorest nations.
Still, prices remain at historically elevated levels and food security remains in a perilous position, the FAO said.
“While prices dropped at the global level, they are still very high and continue to increase in domestic markets, posing additional challenges to food security. This is particularly so in net food-importing developing countries,”said Máximo Torero, chief economist at the FAO.
The food-price index remains close to levels seen in 2011, when a spike in prices helped prompt a wave of global civil unrest, particularly in Middle Eastern and North African states.
Weak local currencies compared with the U.S. dollar and the euro and mounting government debts were further exacerbating the concern over developing countries’ access to affordable food, Mr. Torero said.
March’s drop was most notable in the prices of cereals and grains. The FAO’s measures of cereal prices dropped 5.6% from the previous month, thanks particularly to falls in wheat prices.
Strong harvests in Australia and the continued flow of grains from Ukraine and Russia, because of a UN-brokered agreement, have kept the pressure on global wheat prices, the FAO said.
Elsewhere, vegetable oil prices fell 3%, while dairy prices declined 0.8% and meat prices fell 0.5%. Sugar prices rose 1.5% to their highest level since October 2016 on concerns about crop prospects for producers in India, Thailand and China.
FAO/Hauwa Abu
