PARIS (Reuters) – World meals prices jumped to a new record high in March because the battle in Ukraine triggered turmoil in markets for staples grains and edible oils, the U.N. meals agency stated on Friday.
The Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) meals worth index, which tracks essentially the most globally traded meals commodities, averaged 159.3 factors final month versus an upwardly revised 141.4 for February.
The February determine was beforehand put at 140.7, which was a record on the time.
Russia and Ukraine are each main exporters of wheat, corn, barley and sunflower oil through the Black Sea, and Moscow’s six-week-old invasion of its neighbour has stalled Ukrainian exports.
FAO warned final month that meals and feed prices might rise by up to 20% because of the battle in Ukraine, triggering a leap in world malnourishment.
The agency additionally lower its estimate of world wheat manufacturing in 2022 to 784 million tonnes on Friday from a forecast of 790 million final month because it factored in the chance that not less than 20% of Ukraine’s winter crop space wouldn’t be harvested.
It lowered its projection of worldwide cereals commerce in the 2021/22 advertising 12 months as disruption to Black Sea exports have been seen as solely being partially offset by elevated exports from India, the European Union, Argentina and the United States.
(Reporting by Gus Trompiz; Editing by Jason Neely and Jan Harvey)
