Cereal and edible oils fuel fourth monthly drop in global food prices

Global food prices fell in August for the fourth month running, driven by declines in cereals and edible oils prices, the United Nations’s food agency said yesterday.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) price index, which measures monthly price changes for a basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar, averaged 201.8 points in August, about 1.9% below July’s level.

FAO said it had raised its forecast for global cereal production in 2013/14 to 2.492 billion metric tons, up 0.5% from its July forecast and 7.7% higher than 2012 output.