According to the FAO, the U.N. food agency, world food prices rose for a fourth straight month in November remaining at 10-year highs as continuing strong demand for wheat and dairy products.
In fact, the FAO food price index, which tracks international prices of the most globally traded food commodities, averaged 134.4 points last month compared with a revised 132.8 for October.
On a year-on-year basis, the index was up 27.3% last month.
Particularly, the FAO’s cereal price index rose by 3.1% in November from the previous month and was 23.2% higher than its year-ago level.
The dairy price index posted the largest monthly rise, up 3.4% from the previous month.
Global sugar prices rose 1.4% on the month and was up nearly 40% year-on-year, mainly due to the increase in ethanol prices.
In contrast, the meat price index posted its fourth consecutive monthly decline, shedding 0.9% on the month, while world vegetableoil prices fell 0.3% on October levels.
At the same time, FAO cut its projection of global cereal production in 2021 to 2.791 billion tonnes from 2.793 billion estimated a month ago even if the expected world cereal output would still represent a record.
In add, world cereal utilization in 2021/22 was forecast to rise by 1.7% above the 2020/21 level, hitting 2.810 billion tonnes.
Thus, FAO’s forecast for world cereal stocks by the close of seasons in 2022 stood at 822 million tonnes, up 2.9 million tonnes since November but still down 0.7% from opening levels.
