roma-sana
The food price index of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) fell for the sixth month in a row last September, down from its highest level ever recorded earlier in the year.
Reuters quoted “FAO” as saying today that its index, which tracks the prices of the most traded food commodities in the world, averaged 136.3 points last month, compared to a revised level of 137.9 points in August.
The index fell from a record high of 159.7 in March, yet the September reading is 5.5 percent higher than a year ago.
The recent decline was driven by a 6.6 percent month-on-month decline in vegetable oil prices. Increased supplies and lower oil prices contributed to the decline, while sugar, dairy and meat prices fell by less than one percentage point.
In contrast, the FAO Cereal Price Index rose 1.5 percent month-on-month in September, with wheat prices increasing by 2.2 and rice prices by 2.2.
In separate estimates of cereal supply and demand, FAO lowered its forecast for world cereal production in 2022 to 2.768 billion tons from 2.774 billion previously.
Follow Sana's news on Telegram https://t.me/SyrianArabNewsAgenc