World food prices fall to two-year low in May – UN food agency

PARIS (Reuters) – The United Nations food agency’s world price index fell in May to its lowest in two years, as sharp falls in prices of vegetable oils, cereals and dairy outweighed increases for sugar and meat.

The Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) price index, which tracks the most globally-traded food commodities, averaged 124.3 points in May against a revised 127.7 for the previous month, the agency said on Friday.

The May reading marked the lowest since April 2021 and meant the overall index was now 22% below an all-time peak reached in March 2022 following the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In a separate report on cereals supply and demand, the FAO forecast world cereal production this year at 2.813 billion tonnes, a 1% increase from 2022 that mainly reflected an expected rise in maize output.