World Food Prices to stay high and volatile
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- Created on Monday, 08 October 2012 10:58
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The UN’s Food Agency, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said that World food prices rose in September close to the levels reached during the 2008 food crisis, and the prices would stay high and volatile.
It said that the worst drought in more than 50 years in the United States sent corn and soybean prices to record highs over the summer, and, coupled with drought in Russia and other Black Sea exporting countries, raised fears of a renewed crisis.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) price index, which measures monthly price changes for a food basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar, has risen by 1.4% to an average of 216 points in September after remaining stable at 213 points in August.
The FAO said that the prices are remaining high and it’s highly unlikely there will be a normalisation of prices anytime soon. He added however that it was not clear whether the small increase in September meant prices were now on an upward trend, but he expected volatility in markets could intensify in coming months.
The Rome-based FAO said it had cut its 2012 world cereals output forecast by 0.4% to 2.286 billion tonnes from a previous estimate of 2.295 billion tons, mainly due to a smaller maize crop in central and southeastern parts of Europe, where yields have been hit by prolonged dry conditions.
It also decreased its forecast for world cereal stocks at the end of the 2013 season to 499 million tons, down 4 million tons from its projection last month.(niz)
