Food Prices Continue Steady Rebound -UN FAO
August 06 2020 - 4:31AM
Dow Jones News
By Will Horner
Global food prices rose for a second consecutive month in July
as they continued to recover from a sharp slump driven by the
coronavirus, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization
said Thursday.
The UN FAO's monthly food price index--which tracks a basket of
the most common foodstuffs such as grains, vegetable oils and
meat--rose 1.2% in July to 94.2.
The rise marks a second monthly rise for food prices and
suggests that the worst of the coronavirus's negative effect on
food commodities has abated. Food prices, as measured by the FAO,
fell for four consecutive months at the start of the year as food
supply was slow to adjust to the pandemic's sharp hit to
demand.
The rise in the overall index last month came largely from jumps
in the price of vegetable oils and dairy. The FAO's vegetable oil
price sub-index rose 7.6% thanks to a combination of supply
disruptions and larger-than-expected import demand.
A sub-index tracking dairy prices rose 3.5% due to steadily
rising demand in Asia and Europe, the FAO said.
Sugar prices rose 1.4% driven by rising energy prices and a
drought in Thailand that threatened supply, while cereal prices
rose a modest 0.4%, the FAO said. Meat prices were the only
foodstuff tracked by the FAO to register a decline, falling
1.8%.
Write to Will Horner at william.horner@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 06, 2020 04:16 ET (08:16 GMT)
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