Food prices jump 24.1% yr/yr to hit record high in Feb, U.N. agency says

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ROME (Reuters) -World meals prices hit a record high in February, led by a surge in vegetable oils and dairy merchandise, to submit a 24.1% improve year-on-year, the U.N. meals agency stated on Friday.

The Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) meals value index https://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/foodpricesindex/en, which tracks probably the most globally traded meals commodities, averaged 140.7 factors final month towards a downwardly revised 135.4 in January. That determine was beforehand given as 135.7.

Higher meals prices have contributed to a broader surge in inflation as economies get well from the coronavirus disaster and the FAO has warned https://reut.rs/3JXHPq7 that the upper prices are placing poorer populations in danger in international locations reliant on imports.

FAO economist Upali Galketi Aratchilage stated issues over crop situations and export availabilities supplied solely a partial rationalization to the rise in world meals prices.

“A a lot greater push for meals value inflation comes from exterior meals manufacturing, significantly the vitality, fertilizer and feed sectors,” he stated. “All these components have a tendency to squeeze revenue margins of meals producers, discouraging them from investing and increasing manufacturing.”

Data for the February report was largely compiled earlier than the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Concerns over tensions in the Black Sea space had been already weighing on agricultural markets even earlier than the violence flared, however analysts warn a protracted battle may have a serious impression on grain exports.

FAO stated its vegetable oils index rose 8.5% month-on-month in February to chalk up one other record high, propelled by rising palm, soy, and sunflower oil prices. Ukraine and Russia account for about 80% of world exports of sunflower oil.

The cereal value index rose 3.0% on the month, with maize prices up 5.1% and wheat prices growing 2.1%, largely reflecting uncertainty about world provide flows from Black Sea ports. [GRA/]

FAO’s dairy value index elevated 6.4%, its sixth consecutive month-to-month rise, underpinned by tight world provides, whereas meat prices rose 1.1% in February.

By distinction, sugar was the only index to submit a lower, shedding 1.9% from the earlier month due partly to beneficial manufacturing prospects in main exporters India and Thailand.

FAO additionally issued its first projections for cereal output in 2022, seeing world wheat manufacturing rising to 790 million tonnes from 775.4 million in 2021, thanks in half to hopes of high yields and in depth planting in Canada, the United States and Asia.

The U.N. agency cautioned nevertheless that its projections didn’t take note of the doable impression of the battle between Russia and Ukraine.

FAO stated maize outputs in Argentina and Brazil in 2022 had been forecast at properly above-average ranges, notably in Brazil the place the maize crop was seen reaching a record high 112 million tonnes.

World cereal utilization in 2021/22 was forecast to rise 1.5% above the 2020/21 degree, hitting 2.802 billion tonnes. FAO’s forecast for world cereal shares by the shut of seasons in 2022 stood at 836 million tonnes.

(Editing by Crispian Balmer)



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