Cereal price index rises to 1.7%

NaijaAgroNet:

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Cereal Price Index rose 1.7 percent in April, its fourth consecutive monthly increase, and is now 15.4 percent above its value a year earlier, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Wheat prices NaijaAgroNet were supported by weather-related risks in the United States, while drought-reduced production in Argentina and lower plantings in the U.S. pushed up international maize prices. Rice prices also rose.

The FAO Dairy Price Index rose 3.4 percent from March, reflecting robust demand for all milk products and apprehensions about export availabilities in New Zealand.

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

Declines were posted in April on the three other sub-indices. The FAO Vegetable Oil Price Index declined by 1.4 percent since March, while the FAO Meat Price Index fell 0.9 percent.

The FAO Sugar Price Index fell 4.8 percent in April from the previous month, continuing a decline that began last December, and averaging 24 percent lower than April 2017. Lower prices reflected a supply glut buoyed by record outputs in Thailand and in India, the world's second-largest sugar producer, as well as the depreciation of the Real, the currency of Brazil, the world's largest producer.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE

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