Rome.– World food prices fell for the sixth consecutive month in September, with sharp falls in the prices of vegetable oils that more than offset the rise in cereals, revealed today by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
The FAO Food Price Index reached an average of 136.3 points in September, 1.1% less than in August, but 5.5% more than the value of the previous year, the agency indicated on the indicator that shows the monthly evolution of international prices of a basket of commonly traded food products.
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ANDhe decline in vegetable oil prices drove the overall decline, after declining 6.6 percent during the month to reach its lowest level since February 2021, with declines in international quotations for palm oil, soybean, sunflower and rapeseed.
“The persistent and abundant stocks of palm oil, coinciding with the seasonal increase in production in Southeast Asia”, “the increase in soybean oil export availabilities in Argentina, the increase in sunflower oil supplies from the region of Black Sea and the drop in crude oil prices also contributed to the fall of this subindex,” the FAO explained in a statement.
Cereal prices, on the other hand, rose by 1.5% compared to August, with a rise of 2.2% in wheat price “due to concerns over dry crop conditions in Argentina and the US, the rapid pace of exports from the European Union amid high domestic demand, and heightened uncertainty over the continuation of the Black Sea Grains Initiative after November.
And while the world corn prices were mostly flat, “as the strength of the US dollar offset pressure from tighter supply prospects” in the US and the European Union, rice prices rose 2.2 percent, “largely part in response to changes in export policy in India and concerns about the impact of severe flooding in Pakistan.’
In addition, the price index for dairy products in the FAO fell by 0.6% and that of meat by 0.5%, as well as that of sugar, which fell by 0.7% in September, “mainly due to the good prospects for production in Brazil, together with the drop of ethanol prices and the effects of currency fluctuations.
