According to the United Nations food agency, world food prices jumped in August after two consecutive months of decline, pushed up by strong gains for sugar, vegetable oils and some cereals.
FAO’s food price index, which tracks international prices of the most globally traded food commodities, averaged 127.4 points last month compared with 123.5 in July.
The July figure was previously given as 123.0.
On a year-on-year basis, prices were up 32.9% in August.
In particular, FAO’s cereal price index was 3.4% higher in August from the previous month, with lower harvest expectations in several major exporting countries shunting up world wheat prices by 8.8% month-on-month, while barely surged 9.0%.
By contrast, corn and international rice prices declined.
FAO also said in a statement that worldwide cereal harvests would come in at nearly 2.788 billion tonnes in 2021, down on its previous estimate of 2.817 billion tonnes but still up on 2020 levels.
The fall in its estimate for world cereal production this year was triggered by persistent drought conditions in several major producing countries.
Among the major cereals, the forecast for wheat production saw the biggest downward revision — down 15.2 million tonnes since July to 769.5 million tonnes — due mainly to adverse weather conditions in the United States, Canada, Kazakhstan and Russia.
The forecast for world cereal utilization in 2021/22 was cut by 1.7 million tonnes from July to 2.809 billion tonnes, still 1.4% higher than in 2020/21.
The estimate for world cereal stocks by the close of seasons in 2021/22 was lowered by 27.0 million tonnes since July to 809 million tonnes, pointing to a decline of 0.9% on stock levels registered at the start of the period.
