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Monday, February 17, 2025

Global food prices are at their highest in a decade – UN report

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1172 days ago
20211203
FILE PHOTO – Soaring food prices are hitting low-income households especially hard because higher prices for essentials like bread, meat, milk and rice eat up a larger share of their incomes.  (Image courtesy Al Jazeera via Bloomberg)

FILE PHOTO – Soaring food prices are hitting low-income households especially hard because higher prices for essentials like bread, meat, milk and rice eat up a larger share of their incomes. (Image courtesy Al Jazeera via Bloomberg)

by RAD­MIL­LA SU­LEY­MANO­VA, Al Jazeera

 

■ The Unit­ed Na­tions’ Food Price In­dex climbed for a fourth straight month in No­vem­ber to its high­est lev­el since June 2011 ■

 

(AL JAZEERA) — The price of food sta­ples con­tin­ued to grow in No­vem­ber amid a glob­al en­vi­ron­ment of strong de­mand and tight sup­ply, ac­cord­ing to the Unit­ed Na­tions’ Food and Agri­cul­ture Or­ga­ni­za­tion (FAO).

The FAO’s Food Price In­dex, which mea­sures the month­ly change in the in­ter­na­tion­al price of ce­re­al, dairy, meat, veg­etable oils and sug­ar, jumped 1.6 points in No­vem­ber from the pre­vi­ous month to 134.4. That is the high­est lev­el in a decade and the fourth con­sec­u­tive month the in­dex has risen.

Prices of ce­re­als and dairy saw the sharpest gains, fol­lowed by sug­ar, while prices of meat and veg­etable oils fell slight­ly in No­vem­ber from the pre­vi­ous month.

In­fla­tion for es­sen­tials in­clud­ing food and en­er­gy has sky­rock­et­ed this year, thanks to sup­ply-chain snarls and short­ages as coun­tries cast off COVID-19 re­stric­tions.

Soar­ing food prices are hit­ting low-in­come house­holds es­pe­cial­ly hard be­cause high­er prices for es­sen­tials like bread, meat, milk and rice eat up a larg­er share of their in­comes.

The pain in­flict­ed on con­sumers has placed cen­tral banks the world over in a tough po­si­tion be­cause high­er in­ter­est rates help cool in­fla­tion, but they al­so risk dent­ing frag­ile eco­nom­ic re­cov­er­ies.

In the Unit­ed States, the Fed­er­al Re­serve has pri­ori­tised get­ting Amer­i­cans back to work over rein­ing in in­fla­tion. But with con­sumer price in­fla­tion ac­cel­er­at­ing at its fastest pace in 30 years in Oc­to­ber, Fed Chief Jerome Pow­ell said this week it was time to “re­tire” the word “tran­si­to­ry” when de­scrib­ing in­fla­tion as he sig­nalled that the Fed could speed up the ta­per of its bond pur­chas­es. That in turn could pave the way for an in­ter­est rate hike soon­er than ex­pect­ed.

 

Deep­er dive

 

Ac­cord­ing to the UN, ce­re­al prices jumped 3.1 per­cent in No­vem­ber on a month­ly ba­sis, and 23.2 per­cent com­pared to the same pe­ri­od a year ago. Wheat prices have grown for five con­sec­u­tive months and are now at their high­est lev­el since May 2011, due to har­vest trou­bles in Aus­tralia linked to un­time­ly rains and po­ten­tial changes to ex­port pol­i­cy in Rus­sia.

Maize ex­port prices al­so climbed in No­vem­ber, propped up by strong sales in Ar­genti­na, Brazil and Ukraine.

The dairy in­dex rose 3.4 per­cent on a month­ly ba­sis and was 19.1 per­cent in No­vem­ber com­pared to a year ago, due to grow­ing de­mand for milk and but­ter and de­plet­ed stock.

The FAO’s sug­ar price in­dex av­er­aged 120.7 points in No­vem­ber – 1.4 per­cent high­er than a month ago and a whop­ping 40 per­cent high­er than a year ago.

The meat in­dex fell 0.9 per­cent from Oc­to­ber, dip­ping for a fourth con­sec­u­tive month but still 17.6 per­cent above what it was in No­vem­ber of last year. The rea­son for the slight de­cline is re­duced pur­chas­es of pig meat by Chi­na, es­pe­cial­ly from the Eu­ro­pean Union.

COVID-19United Nationsfood prices


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