{"id":846701,"date":"2026-08-07T11:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T11:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/846701\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T11:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T11:12:10","slug":"world-food-prices-hit-3-year-high-un-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/846701\/","title":{"rendered":"World food prices hit 3-year high: UN agency"},"content":{"rendered":"

PARIS \u2013 World food prices rose in July to their highest in more than three years as adverse weather and war escalation<\/a> in the Gulf and Black Sea supported crop markets, the United Nations\u2019 Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Aug 7.<\/p>\n

The FAO Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in a basket of internationally traded food commodities, averaged 131.1 points in July, up from 130.3 in June and the highest reading since January 2023.<\/p>\n

The FAO\u2019s chief economist told Reuters this week that the world faces another bout of food inflation as wars in Iran and Ukraine, along with El Nino, create a perfect storm of higher costs and lower crop yields.<\/p>\n

A 3.4 per cent month-on-month rise in the FAO’s cereal price index drove the July trend, fuelled in turn by a 5.8 per cent jump in wheat prices, the agency said.<\/p>\n

Wheat markets were affected by concerns over Black Sea export disruptions and heat damage to crops in key producing regions, it said.<\/p>\n

The FAO\u2019s vegetable oil index rose 2 per cent to its highest level since June 2022.<\/p>\n

Higher crude oil prices amid escalation in the Iran war and strong demand for biodiesel supported palm and soya bean oil prices, though rapeseed and sunflower oil declined.<\/p>\n

Sugar prices rose 5.6 per cent on weather concerns in Europe and Asia and expectations of stronger ethanol demand in Brazil.<\/p>\n

In contrast, meat prices fell 2.8 per cent from a record high in June, FAO said.<\/p>\n

Poultry, pig and bovine meat prices declined, though sheep meat prices reached a record high amid tight export supplies in Oceania. Dairy prices fell 0.7 per cent.<\/p>\n

The FAO\u2019s overall food price index reading for July was slightly above a previous three-year high in April.<\/p>\n

The latest reading was nonetheless 18.2 per cent below its March 2022 peak that followed Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. REUTERS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS \u2013 World food prices rose in July to their highest in more than three years as adverse…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":846702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":["post-846701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=846701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/846702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}