The Food and Agricultural Organization said on Friday that global food prices fell in February for the seventh consecutive month as declining cereal prices outpaced rising costs for meat and sugar.
According to the UN organization, the FAO Food Price Index decreased by 0.7 percent in February and has decreased by 10.5 percent from the previous year.
Commodity market prices are measured by the FAO index, and it may take some time for these to appear on store shelves. They only make up a small portion of the end products’ processing costs.
Cereals alone dropped five percent during the month and 22.4 percent from February last year, driven lower by corn “amid expectations of large harvests in South America and competitive prices offered by Ukraine,” the FAO said.
Wheat was pulled lower by stronger Russian exports and rice prices also fell.
Vegetable oils also largely fell due to abundant harvests in South America.
However, due to Brazil’s dry weather, sugar increased by 3.2% throughout the month.
The month-over-month increase in the meat index was caused by the disruption of cattle shipping in Australia by severe rains, and the growing demand for pork in China due to limited supply in Europe.
