What's New

Despite a 3.3 percent decline in December, the FAO Food Price Index saw an overall increase for 2017 as a whole. The Index rose 8.2 percent from 2016 to reach the highest annual average seen since 2014. The increase was driven mainly by sharp increases in dairy and meat prices, but international cereal prices also experienced a modest increase in 2017.

Social protection programs – specifically social safety nets – can meaningfully increase poor populations’ food consumption and asset holdings, according to a new study published in World Development .

The FAO Crop Prospects and Food Situation Report for the last quarter of 2017 reports that 37 countries remain in need of food assistance. Twenty-nine of those countries are in Africa, seven are in Asia, and one is in Latin America and the Caribbean. Persistent conflict coupled with weather shocks resulting in production shortfalls are behind most of these needs. All of these factors have limited food access and availability in the affected countries, in some cases severely.

The December World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates from USDA reports increased supplies for major global commodities.

The gathering of the Eleventh Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization in Buenos Aires Dec. 10-13 was impressive in size. It brought together nearly 4,000 ministers, senior trade officials and other delegates from the WTO's 164 members and observers as well as representatives from civil society, business and the global media.