Food Prices on the Rise Again, Reports UN Agency

Global food prices are on the rise again, with the FAO Food Price Index registering four straight monthly rises and hitting more than a year high in November, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in its latest Food Outlook report. The UN organization however noted that the current market conditions are different from those that triggered the food price crisis that started two years ago.

FAO noted that the Price Index, which measures monthly price changes for a food basket composed of cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar, averaged 168 points in November, the highest since September 2008. The index never exceeded 120 points and, for most of the time, was below 100 points during the 2007/08 food crisis.

"At the onset of the price surge in 2007, FAO identified a number of possible causes contributing to the price rise: low levels of world cereal stocks; crop failures in major exporting countries; rapidly growing demand for agricultural commodities for biofuels and rising oil prices," the FAO report said.

For more information, read http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/38040/icode/ The report is available at http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/ak341e/ak341e00.htm