World food prices drop in April - FAO

PanARMENIAN.Net - World food prices eased in April after rising in the first quarter of this year, the United Nation's food agency said, but inflation worries are still simmering as soybean prices climb, according to Reuters.

Record high food prices last February helped to fuel the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa. Prices receded in the second half of 2011 but the uptrend resumed in January.

The FAO Food Price Index, which measures monthly price changes for a food basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar, averaged 214 points in April, down from revised 217 in March, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Thursday, May 3.

Last week, the World Bank said costlier oil, strong demand from Asia and bad weather had been pushing up global food prices, adding that if current production forecasts for 2012/2013 do not materialize, prices could reach higher levels.

While record total cereal crops are expected this year, strong demand coupled with low initial stocks are likely to lead to tight supplies of coarse grains and soybeans which would support prices, the FAO said in its Food Outlook.

The FAO has cut its outlook for the world new crop wheat output to 675 million metric tons (744 million tons) from an earlier forecast of 690 million, down 3.6 percent from last year, citing output falls in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, China, Morocco and the European Union.

International wheat prices in 2012/13 are expected to average lower than in the previous crop year, despite smaller crops and shrinking stocks, due to a fall in consumption and large export supplies, the FAO said.