World food prices rose for a second consecutive month last month to reach a 10-year peak, driven by gains for cereals and vegetable oils, the UN food agency said yesterday.
The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) also projected record global cereal production in this year, but said that this would be outpaced by forecast consumption.
The agency’s food price index, which tracks prices of the most globally traded food commodities, averaged 130 points last month, the highest reading since September 2011, FAO data showed.
Photo: AFP
The figure compared with a revised 128.5 for August. The figure for the month was previously given as 127.4.
On a year-on-year basis, prices were up 32.8 percent last month.
Agricultural commodity prices have risen steeply in the past year, fueled by harvest setbacks and Chinese demand.
The agency’s cereal price index rose by 2.0 percent last month from the previous month.
That was led by a near 4 percent increase in wheat prices, attributed by the agency to tightening export availabilities amid strong demand.
“Among major cereals, wheat will be the focus in the coming weeks as demand needs to be tested against fast rising prices,” FAO senior economist Abdolreza Abbassian said in a statement.
Vegetable oil prices were up 1.7 percent month-on-month, or about 60 percent year-on-year, as palm oil prices climbed on robust import demand and concerns over labor shortages in Malaysia, the agency said.
Palm oil futures rallied further earlier this month to hit record highs as a surge in crude oil markets has lent further support to vegetable oils used in biodiesel.
Global sugar prices rose 0.5 percent last month, with concern over adverse weather in top exporter Brazil partly offset by slowing import demand, and a favorable production outlook in India and Thailand, the agency said.
For cereal production, it projected a record world crop of 2.8 billion tonnes this year, up slightly from 2.788 billion tonnes estimated a month ago.
That would be below world cereal use of 2.811 billion tonnes, a forecast revised up by 2.7 million tonnes from a month earlier, mainly to reflect increased wheat use in animal feed, the agency said in a cereal supply and demand note.
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