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The price of food is continuing to rise, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the UN has said.
In its latest food price index (FFPI) for June, the FAO said the index averaged 163.4 points, 6.6 points (4.2%) higher than in May. The June average was also 1% below June of last year.
This rise marked the fifth consecutive monthly rise in the value of the FFPI as well as the largest monthly increase witnessed over the past four years.
The FFPI consists of the average of five commodity group price indices, including dairy, meat, vegetable oil, cereal price and sugar.
Commodity prices
The dairy index averaged 137.9 points in June, up 9.9 points (7.8%) from May. However, despite the large increase, the FAO says this rise “only represented a recovery from the low prices prevailing in the preceding three months”.
The index for meat also increased by 3.8 points (2.4) to 158.3 points in June. For the third consecutive month, average quotations strengthened for all categories of meat.
Vegetable oil was the only commodity to decrease in June – down by 1.3 points (0.8) to 162.1.
Both cereal and sugar increased, with cereal up 2.9% and sugar up 14.8%.
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