World food prices rose in
August to their highest since late 2022, as adverse weather and
war disruption in the Gulf and Black Sea heightened concern over
supply of staples, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture
Organization said on Friday.
Extreme heat and drought in Europe, the threat of a severe
El Nino weather pattern and trade upheaval caused by the Ukraine
and Iran wars have unsettled agricultural markets, pushing grain
prices to three-year highs and sugar to a one-year peak.
The FAO Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in a
basket of internationally traded food commodities, averaged
133.3 points in August, up from July's revised reading of 130.8.
That was the highest score since November 2022, though
nearly 17 per cent below a record peak from March 2022, after Russia's
full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
"August’s increase in global food prices is a warning that
the risk premium is returning to food markets: climate shocks,
geopolitical tensions and disrupted trade logistics are
converging to tighten supply expectations," FAO Chief Economist
Maximo Torero said in a statement.
The FAO's price benchmarks for cereals, vegetable oils,
sugar, meat and dairy all rose in August.
The extreme weather in Europe affected prospects for the
maize and sugar beet harvests as well as livestock output, while
the anticipated El Nino phenomenon fuelled concerns for
vegetable oil and sugar output, it said.
Escalating attacks in the Black Sea have curtailed grain
shipments from Russia and Ukraine in their 4-1/2-year-old war,
while the US-Iran conflict was still straining flows of
fertiliser for crops.
In a separate report, the agency cut its 2026 global cereal
production forecast by 3.4 million metric tons from July to
2.980 billion tonne, now 2.0 per cent below 2025, though still the
second-largest harvest on record.
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