Food Price Index declines for 11th consecutive month - NaijaAgroNet

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The benchmark index of international food commodity prices declined in February for the eleventh consecutive month, albeit only marginally, reports NaijaAgroNet.

This revelation was made by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in its latest report on food price index, saying that it averaged 129.8 points in February, a marginal 0.6-percent decrease from January but 18.7 percent down from its peak in March 2022.

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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Food Price Index dips 1.3% in August

NaijaAgroNet:

The global food prices have dipped in month of August as a result of prospect from bumper cereal harvests expected for larger grain inventories, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Food Price Index made available to NaijaAgroNet, indicated a decline of 1.3 per cent from July assessment, thus averaging 176.6 points in August.

The drop, NaijaAgroNet reported, was largely driven by a 5.4 per cent decline in the FAO Cereal Price Index, reflecting a sharp fall in wheat prices as the outlook for production in the Black Sea region improved.

FAO raised its forecast for global cereal production to 2 611 million tonnes, an all-time record. Worldwide stocks of cereals are also expected to reach an all-time high by the close of seasons in 2018, according to the latest FAO Cereal Supply and Demand Brief, also released recently.

The new estimates reflect larger anticipated wheat harvests, as improved production prospects in the Russian Federation more than offset downward revisions made for Canada and the United States of America, as well as higher maize and barley outputs in Brazil and the Russian Federation. Global rice production in 2017 is also now forecast to reach a record high, according to FAO. 

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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.

Cyriacus Nnaji/ GEE

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