World food prices reach 18-month high in October, UN says

PARIS (Reuters) -World food prices rose in October to an 18-month high as vegetable oils led increases seen in most food staples, United Nations’ data showed on Friday.

A price index compiled by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to track the most globally traded food commodities increased to 127.4 points last month, up 2% from a revised 124.9 points in September.

That put the index up 5.5% from a year ago and marked its highest since April 2023, though it was 20.5% below a record from March 2022 reached after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the data showed.

Prices of all categories rose apart from meat, with vegetable oils jumping more than 7% from the previous month, supported by concerns over palm oil production, the FAO said.

The overall index extended gains from September when it had reached its highest since July 2023 on the back of surging sugar prices.

Persisting concerns over the 2024/25 production outlook in Brazil supported a more moderate increase for sugar prices in October when they advanced 2.6%, the FAO said.

Cereal prices edged up 0.8% from September.

Wheat rose amid concerns over northern hemisphere planting conditions and following the introduction of an unofficial Russian export price floor, while maize was also higher, the FAO said.

Dairy prices rose nearly 2%, supported by cheese and butter, which both faced strong demand and limited available supply, the agency said.

Overall meat prices edged down 0.3%. Pork saw the sharpest decline while poultry ticked lower, in contrast to beef that rose on the back of increased international demand.

In a separate cereal report, the FAO trimmed its forecast for global cereal production in 2024 to 2.848 billion metric tons from 2.853 billion projected a month ago.

The revision left expected output down 0.4% from the previous year but it remained the second-largest level on record.

(Reporting by Gus TrompizEditing by Tomasz Janowski)