Commodity

The FAO Food Price Index continued its decline in February, falling marginally due to declines in cereal and vegetable oil prices. The February Index was down 10.5 percent from its 2023 level.

The FAO Food Price Index continued its decline in January, driven mainly by falling cereal and meat prices. The January 2024 Index was 10.4 percent below its January 2023 level.

As with other commodity markets such as rice, the global sugar market has seen large increases in prices due to El Niño-related production shortfalls in major exporting countries in South and Southeast Asia. At the same time, other factors are also constricting supplies. Port bottlenecks have tied up exports in Brazil, the world's largest sugar exporter, despite a large increase in production over last year's levels. Domestic biofuel policies in key exporting countries are diverting sugar production to biofuel production and thus limiting exports.

Food prices continued to decline, albeit more slowly, in October, according to the latest FAO Food Price Index. The Index was down 0.5 percent from September and 10.9 percent from October 2022.

The FAO Food Price Index remained virtually unchanged month-to-month in September and almost 24 percent lower than the peak reached in March 2022.