The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) announced that the reference index of world food prices recorded, in July 2022, a fall of 8.6% compared to its level of the last month.
In this regard, the UN agency argued in a report made public that “the benchmark index of world food prices fell sharply in July (2022), with the prices of the main cereals and vegetable oils registering a drop two digits”.
In clear terms, the FAO Food Price Index notably averaged 140.9 points in July 2022, corresponding to a decline of 8.6% compared to June 2022, notes the document which adds that This was its fourth consecutive monthly decline since hitting its highest level on record earlier in the year.
The index, which makes it possible to follow the monthly evolution of the international prices of a basket of commonly traded food products, nevertheless remained 13.1% higher than its value in July 2021, notes, however, the source.
She said the Vegetable Oil Price Index sank 19.2% in July, falling to its lowest level in 10 months.
Thus, the report mentions that “the prices of all types of oil have fallen, due to the abundant export supplies expected in Indonesia for palm oil, the new abundant harvest of rapeseed oil which is forecast and a demand for soybean oil which remained sluggish”.
The FAO notes in the report that sunflower oil prices had also fallen sharply, amid limited global import demand and continued uncertainties over logistics in the Black Sea region.
At the same time, the UN organization links this downward trend to the decline in crude oil prices, which also pulled the values of vegetable oils down.
For their part, cereal prices fell by 11.5% in July while still remaining up by 16.6% compared to July 2021, the report points out, not without specifying that the prices of all cereals represented in the index had fallen over the period studied.
This decline is in line with that of wheat prices, which lost no less than 14.5% in the wake of the agreement concluded between Ukraine and the Russian Federation on the unblocking of the main ports of the Black Sea. and due to the arrival of seasonal supplies from the current harvests in the northern hemisphere.
World coarse grain prices fell 11.2 percent in July, with maize prices down 10.7 percent, FAO notes, stressing that the decline was also partly due , the Black Sea agreement, as well as the increase in seasonal supplies in Argentina and Brazil.
Moctar FICOU / VivAfrik
