The United Nations agency FAO monitors global food prices of cereal, vegetable oil, sugar, milk and meat, and all of the staple commodity prices declined in March, apart from animal protein.
The FAO Meat Price Index increased slightly by 0.7% in March, led by the strong import demand in Asia for beef and pork.
The first of the FAO’s global projections of 2017 shows that overall food prices declined by 2.8% when comparing February and March of this year. But as the FAO food Price Index averaged nearly 171 points, global food prices still stand at 13% higher than at the same stage last year.
Sugar prices declined by nearly 11%, vegetable oil prices are down by 6%, cereal prices dropped by 1.8% and growing supplies of milk led to a 2.3% decline in March.
The Food Price Index is a trade-weight index tracking international market prices of the five food commodities.