What's New

The latest FAO Food Price Index, released this week, remained largely unchanged from last month's at 206.7 points. Overall, the Index was slightly lower in 2013 than in 2012; food prices declined 1.6 percent in the past year. However, 2013 levels were still the third highest annual value on record.

The Cereal Price Index declined 1.4 percent from November due to record harvests and large global supplies, particularly for wheat and maize. On the other hand, rice prices rose slightly in December. In 2013, the Cereal Index fell by 17 points from 2012.

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Fertilizer use in India has exploded since the government began a subsidization program in the 1970s. National fertilizer consumption rates increased by 50% during the 1990s. But research has shown that the effectiveness of these inputs has actually declined – on average, 8 kilograms of grain were produced per kilogram of fertilizer in the late 1990s, compared to 25 kg of grain per kg of fertilizer in the 1960s.

The issue of large-scale public food stockholding programs played a starring role in this month's 9th WTO Ministerial in Bali (for more analysis, read posts by Eugenio Diaz-Bonilla and David Laborde and Luca Salvatici). The resulting ministerial declaration, released on December 7, establishes an interim mechanism that Members can use to navigate the use and management of public food stocks in lieu of a more permanent solution. The declaration calls for a permanent solution to be concluded no later than the 11th Ministerial Conference.

The “food vs. fuel” debate came no closer to a resolution last week, as Energy ministers from the European Union’s 28 member states failed to agree on a compromise limiting the use of transport fuels made from food crops such as rapeseed and wheat, so-called first generation biofuels.