World Food Price Index rises in February

The World food prices have increased for the ninth consecutive month in February 2021. This increase is the at its highest level since July 2014.

Highlights

The Food and Agriculture Organisation stated that the food prices have increased because of jumps in prices of sugar and vegetable oils. The food price index measures the monthly changes for a basket containing the cereals, dairy products, oilseeds, meat and sugar. The index had averaged to 116.0 points in February 2021 against the 113.3 points in January. The FAO also highlighted that; the cereal harvests remained on course worldwide so as to hit the annua record in the year 2020.

Variations in Price index

The cereal price index provided by the FAO has increased to 1.2% in February 2021. The prices of sorghum have increased the most that is 17.4% for month and 82.1%. This increase in price index of sorghum is led by the increased demand in China. The prices for Maize and rice have also increased while prices on export of wheat remained stable. The price of sugar has increased to 6.4% month on month. Further, there are concerns over supplies in the year 2021 because of fall in production in the major producing countries and strong demand from Asia. Vegetable oil price index has also increased by 6.2% while the prices of palm oil increased for a ninth month. Dairy prices have increased b 1.7% while meat index was increased by 0.6%.

FAO’s forecast

The food and agriculture organisation had increased its forecast in the 2020 cereal season to 2.761 billion tonnes. Earlier it was estimated as 2.744 billion. The global rice production forecast was also increased by 2.6 million tonnes for March 2021 as compared to February.

Food Price Index

The food price index is released by the Food and Agriculture organisation. It measures the monthly change in international prices of basket of food commodities.

Month: Current Affairs - March, 2021