Food prices post sharp decline in July - NaijaAgroNet

NaijaAgroNet:

Global agricultural food commodity prices fell sharply in July, as all the major traded items posted notable declines, led by dairy and sugar, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The FAO Food Price Index averaged 168.8 points, 3.7 percent below their June level, the biggest monthly drop since late last year. The index had been steadily rising in 2018 until June.

The FAO Food Price Index is a measure of the monthly change in international prices of a basket of commodities.

The FAO Dairy Price Index led the slide, declining 6.6 percent, with butter and cheese quotations dropping faster than those for whole and skim milk powders.

The FAO Sugar Price Index fell 6 percent to a nearly three-year low, largely driven by improved production prospects in India and Thailand, both important sugar-producing countries. Expectations of lower output in Brazil, the world's largest producer and exporter, limited the fall in international sugar prices.

The FAO Cereal Price Index declined 3.6 percent from June and is now below its year-ago level. Export quotations for wheat, maize and rice all declined, although wheat and maize values edged higher towards the end of July.

The FAO Vegetable Oil Price Index was 2.9 percent lower, its sixth consecutive monthly decline, and is now at its lowest level since January 2016. Part of the July slide was driven by spill-over weakness from the soybean market, which is affected by the trade dispute between China and the United States of America. Rapeseed oil values trended upwards, however, buoyed by improved demand from biodiesel producers and negative crop prospects in the European Union.

The FAO Meat Price Index declined 1.9 percent from its June value, which was revised up in the wake of higher beef export prices from Brazil due to a truck drivers' strike.

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Drop in prices, ends 3 months decline - FOA

NaijaAgroNet:

The slight decline in the FAO Food Price Index by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in August 2017, has ended three months of consecutive increases, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Despite this, NaijaAgroNet reports that the Index, a trade-weighted index tracking international market prices for five key commodity groups remained 6 per cent above its value a year earlier.

NaijaAgroNet also reports that along with cereals, the FAO Meat Price Index dropped 1.2 per cent in the month, while the FAO Sugar Price Index slipped by 1.7 per cent was driven by favourable cane harvest prospects in leading producers Brazil, Thailand and India, as well as by weaker international demand in the wake of higher tariffs imposed by China and India.

But the FAO Vegetable Oil Price Index rose 2.5 percent, led by rising quotations for palm, soy, rapeseed and sunflower oils. And the FAO Dairy Price Index also rose 1.4 percent from July, led by greater demand for butterfat in Europe and North America.


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Pix: FAO Director-General da-Silva

OECD, FAO predict decline growth in world food prices

NaijaAgroNet:

The duo of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) have predicted a decline in growth in the world food prices, reports NaijaAgroNet.

A joint press statement on the OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2017-2026, informed NaijaAgroNet that the global food commodity prices are projected to remain low over the next decade compared to previous peaks, as demand growth in a number of emerging economies is expected to slow down and biofuel policies have a diminished impact on markets, according to the latest 10-year agricultural outlook published today by the OECD and FAO.

The Outlook also predicted that vegetable oils, sugar and dairy products are expected to be main provider of additional calories over next decade.

Equally, the Agricultural Outlook, NaijaAgroNet gathered indicated that the completed replenishment of cereal stocks by 230 million metric tonnes over the past decade, combined with abundant stocks of most other commodities, should also help limit growth in world prices, which are now almost back to their levels before the 2007-08 food price crisis.

The report foresees per capita demand for food staples remaining flat, except in least developed countries. Additional calories and protein consumption over the outlook period are expected to come mainly from vegetable oil, sugar and dairy products.

“Growth in demand for meat is projected to slow, with no new sources of demand projected to maintain the momentum previously generated by China,” part of the outlook showed.

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Global food prices decline in March

NaijaAgroNet:

… Sugar, vegetable oils slide

The global food prices monitored by Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) fell in March amid large available supplies and expectations of strong harvests, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The FAO Food Price Index, made available to NaijaAgroNet showed average at nearly 171 points in March, marking a 2.8 percent drop from the previous month while remaining 13.4 percent above its level a year earlier. 

FAO's Food Price Index is a trade-weighted index tracking international market prices of five major food commodity groups.

FAO also released its first world cereal supply and demand outlook for the year ahead, expecting it to be "another season of relative market tranquillity" with grain inventories remaining at near-record levels.

Meanwhile, NaijaAgroNet gathered that meat prices are exception in general downward trend, according to the FAO Cereal Price Index declined 1.8 percent from February, led down by wheat and maize. It is now roughly par with its March 2016 level.

The FAO Vegetable Oil Price Index was 6.2 percent lower on the month. Palm oil and soy oil quotations both fell in March on the back of improving production forecasts, while those of rape and sunflower seed oils also declined due to higher-than-expected availabilities.

The FAO Sugar Price Index declined by 10.9 percent to its lowest level since May 2016 amid weak import demand and expectations of robust Brazilian supplies entering world markets as a result of strong harvests and slower domestic uptake for bio-ethanol production.

Buoyant milk supplies led to a 2.3 percent monthly decline in the FAO Dairy Price Index, which, however, remained well above its year-ago level.

The FAO Meat Price Index rose 0.7 per cent, led upward by firm import demand from Asia for bovine meat and pigmeat.

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Experts say climate change may cause decline in nutrients

NaijaAgroNet:

Experts have raised alarming over the global effects of climate change to food which may lead to loss of nutritional content of some foods, such as declining zinc, iron and protein counts in staple cereals, and trigger new health issues, including diarrhoea for humans and an array of transboundary animal diseases, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Experts at the Food and Agriculture Organisation, beyond 2030, scientific evidence has shown negative pressures on food production will be increasingly felt everywhere. Until then, adverse impacts of higher temperatures are sharply skewed towards developing countries, pointing to dimmer prospects for their food self-sufficiency.

They said that helping smallholders adapt to climate change risks is critical for global poverty reduction and food security.

Close attention, FAO experts said, should be paid to removing obstacles they may face and fostering an enabling environment for individual, joint and collective action.

Further, FAO urged policy makers to identify and remove such barriers, stressing that these obstacles can include input subsidies that promote unsustainable farming practices, poorly aligned incentives and inadequate access to markets, credit, extension services and social protection programmes, and often disadvantage women, who make up to 43 percent of the agricultural labour force.

The report stresses that more climate finance is needed to fund developing countries' actions on climate change.  International public finance for climate change adaptation and mitigation is growing and, while still relatively small, can act as a catalyst to leverage larger flows of public and private investments. More climate finance needs to flow to sustainable agriculture, fisheries and forestry to fund the large-scale transformation and the development of climate-smart food production systems. Adaptation and mitigation of climate change must  occur in tandem. 

Without action, agriculture will continue to be a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions. But by adopting climate-smart practices and increasing the capacity of soils and forests to sequester carbon, emissions can be reduced while stepping up food production to feed the world's growing population, the report said. Food systems can further contribute by minimizing food losses and waste, as well as by promoting healthier diets that also leave a lighter environmental footprint.

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FAO: Sugar induces decline in food price index

 NaijaAgroNet

 

 The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Food Price Index has continued to decline in March by1.5 per cent from February and 18.7 percent (40 points) below its level a year earlier, NaijaAgroNet reports.

The FAO food price is a trade-weighted index that tracks prices of five major food commodity groups on international markets, namely cereals, meat, dairy products, vegetable oils and sugar.

NaijaAgroNet also reports that a sharp fall in the price index for sugar which reached its lowest level since February 2009 together with dipping prices for vegetable oils, cereals and meat, more than offset a rise in dairy prices and contributed to the lower index, which in March averaged 173.8 points.

The index, NaijaAgroNet gathered has been on a downward path since April 2014.

The FAO noted that the Sugar Price Index averaged 187.9 points in March, down a sharp 9.2 percent from February. Stressing this was mainly due to improved crop prospects but also the continued weakening of the Brazilian currency against the US dollar, which is supportive to exports, NaijaAgroNet learnt.

The cereal output estimate for 2014, on other hand, rose to 2 544 million tonnes mainly due to a larger than anticipated maize harvest in the European Union, which confirmed that the global cereal output in 2014 would outstrip the 2013 record by 1 per cent.

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