Global food prices reached a ten-year high in 2021, increasing by more than 28 percent, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has said.
The agency’s Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in international prices, averaged 125.7 points in 2021 - a 28.1 percent increase compared to 2020.
FAO senior economist Abdolreza Abbassian explained that, normally, high prices were expected to ease as production increased to match demand.
This time, however, the consistently high cost of inputs, the ongoing pandemic and ever more volatile climatic conditions “leave little room for optimism about a return to more stable market conditions even in 2022.”
At the end of the year, world food prices fell slightly, as international prices for vegetable oils and sugar fell significantly, FAO's data shows.
In December 2021, the Food Price Index?averaged 133.7 points, a 0.9% decline from November, but was still up 23.1% from the same month the year before. Only dairy posted a rise that month.
The Cereal Price Index also decreased 0.6 percent; for the full year, however, it reached its highest annual level since 2012, rising 27.2 percent.
Biggest gainers were maize, up 44.1 percent, and wheat, gaining 31.3 percent. One of the world’s other key staple foods, rice, lost 4 percent.
