Global prices for food commodities like rice and vegetable oil have risen for the first time in months after Russia pulled out of a wartime agreement allowing Ukraine to ship grain to the world, and India restricted some of its rice exports, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said Friday.
The FAO Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in the international prices of commonly traded food commodities, increased 1.3% in July over June, driven by higher costs for rice and vegetable oil. It was the first uptick since April, when higher sugar prices bumped up the index slightly for the first time in a year.
Commodity prices have been falling since hitting record highs last year in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Disrupted supplies from the two countries exacerbated a global food crisis because they're leading suppliers of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other affordable food products, especially to nations in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia where millions are struggling with hunger.
The world is still rebounding from those price shocks, which have increased inflation, poverty and food insecurity in developing nations that rely on imports.
Now, there are new risks after Russia in mid-July exited a deal brokered by the U.N. and Turkey that provided protections for ships carrying Ukraine's agricultural products through the Black Sea. Along with Russian attacks on Ukrainian ports and grain infrastructure, wheat and corn prices have been zigzagging on global markets.
International wheat prices rose by 1.6% in July over June, the first increase in nine months, FAO chief economist Maximo Torero said.
More worrying is India's trade ban on some varieties of non-Basmati white rice, prompting hoarding of the staple in some parts of the world. The restrictions imposed late last month came as an earlier-than-expected El Niño brought drier, warmer weather in some parts of Asia and was expected to harm rice production.
Rice prices rose 2.8% in July from a month earlier and 19.7% this year to reach their highest level since September 2011, the FAO said.
More expensive rice “raises substantial food security concerns for a large swath of the world population, especially those that are most poor and who dedicate a larger share of their incomes to purchase food,” the organization said in a statement.
It will be especially challenging for sub-Saharan Africa because it's a key importer of rice, Torero told reporters.
Even sharper was the jump in vegetable oil prices as tracked by the FAO, rising 12.1% last month over June after falling for seven months in a row. The organization pointed to a 15% surge in sunflower oil prices following “renewed uncertainties” about supplies following the end of the grain deal.
“While the world has adequate food supplies, challenges to supplies from major producers due to conflict, export restrictions or weather-induced production shortfalls can lead to supply and demand imbalances across regions," said Torero, the FAO chief economist. That will lead to a "lack of food access because of increasing prices and potential food insecurity.”
He noted that global food commodity prices are different than what people pay at markets and grocery stores. Despite prices plunging on world markets since last year, that relief hasn't reached households.
Local food prices are still rising in many developing countries because their currencies have weakened against the dollar, which is used to buy grain and vegetable oil.
“That transmission from lower commodity prices to the final consumer prices, which include other components like logistics and other products we produce — bread, for example — is not yet happening in developing countries,” Torero said.
Moving back to higher food commodity prices “could make this lack of transmission take longer than expected,” he said.
© Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
41 Comments
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sakurasuki
Japan will blame again to external source for daily items price increase.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/02/11/business/economy-business/japan-price-hikes-inflation-survey/
Blacklabel
To hear the comments here prior to this it sounded like wheat prices were gonna double or triple, not just go up a paltry 1.6%.
nobody is starving to death over that.
James
Glad I get my rice from a local farmer and have prepaid for a year.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Russia can do the right thing and stop firing on grain ships and silos.
2020hindsights
Expecting Russia to do the right thing? Not likely.
RichardPearce
Of course, the American blocking of Russian grain and fertilizer has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with this.
Nor the American backed ABSOLUTELY NOT A COUP that overthrew the last democratically elected government a united and peaceful Ukraine had.
Nope it is all ENTIRELY the fault of people refusing to let America dictate what happens.
As numerous posters and America's Spin Masters tell us with a frequency and intensity PJB and the short Austrian didn't even fantasize about matching.
Blacklabel
That’s a big change from Russia gonna cause all of Africa starve to death.
they just not doing the “right thing” in the left’s opinion.
2020hindsights
RichardPearce
Lies. America is absolutely not blocking Russian grain and fertilizer. In fact, Russia had a record year selling grain. Why do you lie about this?
2020hindsights
Blacklabel
And yet:
Yrral
I can get food 75 percent off at Big Lots,if it a week near expiration
stormcrow
World Hunger, brought to you by a cold and uncaring Russia.
They make war because they like to!
RichardPearce
Biden to the world 'Demand Russia stop protecting Ukrainians from the Kyiv regime and let it ship most of its grain to Europe'.
Africa's governments to Biden 'Stop making it hard for us to buy Russia's fertilizer and grain so we can feed ourselves'.
Guess which message gets a story in JT.
2020hindsights
RichardPearce
What are you talking about???
Eastman
its all crap talk.
world does not depend at substandard grain from Ukraine at all.
if west feels bad about that-they can lower their prices and offer to african nations as Russia did-right?
i see no problem with that at all as they cares so much about poor africans from their deep hearts...?
there is no famine at all,there is a lot of food and grain,especially in Russia and east Europe expecting record harvest this year...
Blacklabel
yeah the African continent in particular has been historically known as being prosperous and well fed until Russia made this decision a few weeks ago.
damn Russians how dare they stave the world!
2020hindsights
Blacklabel
Indeed.
HonestDictator
The mental gymnastics of Putin's propaganda pushers...
wallace
Blacklabel
Why do you know so little about Africa? It's on the news daily.
Today a fifth of the African population (278m) is undernourished, and 55 million of its children under the age of five are stunted due to severe malnutrition. “The hunger African people are facing today is a direct result of inadequate political choices. Feb 17, 2023
https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/over-20-million-more-people-hungry-africas-year-nutrition
Cards fan
Yeah, I'm sure that has nothing do with historical colonialism, the likes of which Russia is currently engaging in, in Africa.
Really weird how the right thinks they know more about any given topic than the actual experts it in the field.
Blacklabel
Russia is colonizing Africa now? How dare they!
Cards fan
Yes. Yes they are.
Ah, so you are for colonialism now? Got it.
How Russia tried to colonise Africa and failed | Opinions | Al Jazeera
Cards fan
www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/7/30/where-would-africa-be-without-russian-and-western-propaganda
EvilBuddha
Rice is preferred as a staple more in South and East India than in the North and Western parts.
Had the Bengalis, Tamils, Malayalis, Kannadigas, Telugus, Assamese turned to chapatis and rotis instead of sticking to rice this ban would not have been needed.
Rotis/chapatis are a healthier option as compared to rice because they are made of wheat and contain proteins, minerals and fibre. They are harder to digest than rice but contains less calories.
Mr Kipling
Russia ended the grain deal?
No. Russia did not renew the grain deal because Ukraine broke the agreement.
Sometimes facts matter.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Still Putin's decision not to renew the grain deal.
RichardPearce
Love how, when the White Bloc violates an international agreement, it is the other side's responsibility when the agreement falls apart, according to the same people who insist that when the other side violates an agreement and the White Bloc pulls out of it, it is the other side's responsibility.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Ukraine's agreement was with the UN. If Ukraine violated something, the UN should have ended it and it did not.
wallace
RichardPearce
Who is this white bloc you repeatedly post about? You are of the white bloc? So many people in that including Russians, Middle East Arabs, and Jews.
Rodney
Answer, stop sanctioning Russia
Raw Beer
Perhaps if the Kiev regime didn't take advantage of the grain deal to attack Russia...
Anyway, prices have been increasing long before the end of the grain deal, even before Russia's SMO. Seems it started soon after Biden's inauguration...
cuddly
Ukraine has not been making this situation any better.
ClippetyClop
Agreed, very selfish of them to continue to be invaded.
Cards fan
Perhaps if the fascist Putin regime hadn't have invaded Ukraine. Cry me a river.
cuddly
If Clinton didn't allow NATO to expand eastward there would be no dispute.
Cards fan
Pathetic. If fascist Russia didn't repeatedly invade their neighbors their neighbors wouldn't have any use for NATO. Anything to avoid placing blame where it belongs with the invaders.
Cards fan
lol Yes it is. Now you're just making stuff up. Hilarious.
ClippetyClop
Haha! It’s like we’re back in 2022.
So what is it? Are the Russians just on holiday there for a bit?
RichardPearce
Valid reasons for invading countries, according to the same people calling Russia a fascist country
Overthrowing a foreign backed corrupt government (Yemen)
Preventing the overthrow of your government by a foreign backed group (Syria)
Political unrest/civil war (long list of Latin American countries)
Though, of course, they all boil down to the one common denominator, breaking away from Washington's control.
But intervening in a civil war between a coup installed regime and the population that wants their peaceful, unified, democratic country back, well that makes you a fascist dictator (unless you live in the White House, of course, then you're a humanitarian no matter how many people you starve, kidnap and torture, bomb, shoot, terrorize...)
Cards fan
How isn't Russia a fascist country? It is. Try opposing the Putin regime. Try speaking out against the invasion.
What does any of this nonsense have to do with Russia invading Ukraine?
"Intervening?" Who do you think you're kidding? They didn't "intervene," they caused the civil unrest.
Nonsense. President Zelensky was duly elected president of Ukraine, which is more than what we can say for the sham Russian elections.
Peter14
cuddlyToday 09:37 pm JST
What a delusional statement. Ignoring reality just makes anything you post irrelevant.
Crossing international borders to kill that countries troops and civilians, then declaring their territory is now your own, is exactly what an invasion is. But you already know that.
So what is the purpose to your lie? The Russian people already understand it is an invasion to expand Russia's borders. The Ukrainians know better than anyone else that this horrendous invasion by Russia is no imaginary thing. And those around the world getting daily video feeds of the death and destruction wrought on Ukraine by its Russian neighbor are under no delusion that this is anything but an invasion by an aggressor nation using terror as one of its weapons to conquer Ukraine.
So if your trying to convince yourself in order to live with the shameful knowledge Russia has become a fully fledged terrorist nation with ambitions of Empire building using murder on a massive scale, I think you will fail in the end. The evidence is simply overwhelming and unable to be ignored by anyone. Russia has invaded Ukraine and intends to steal as much Ukrainian territory as it can hold onto. A plan first enacted way back in 2014 by Putin, who is by now much less confident in taking the entire nation of Ukraine which was the initial intention.
Strangerland
This is what the Russian propaganda machine is desperate to put out, so people will stop pointing out that they invaded a foreign nation and started war crime-ing it's citizens. Are you intetionally pushing the sae agenda Russian propaganda, or do you just coincidentally have the same agenda?