São Paulo – Food prices are expected to oscillate less in the last months of this year and in 2014. The forecast was issued by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO); last Thursday (7th), in Rome, the FAO released its expectations for 2014 and price variations in October.
The reason for the milder variation, according to the director of the FAO Trade and Markets Division, David Hallam, is the expectation that cereal production will increase. “The prices for most basic food commodities have declined over the past few months. This relates to production increases and the expectation that in the current season, we will have more abundant supplies, more export availabilities and higher stocks,” he said.
The FAO forecasts that cereal stocks will increase because there are no expectations of a maize crop failure in the United States, as was the case in 2012, or a wheat crop failure in the former Soviet Union countries, as happened last year as well. The FAO expects the 2014 cereal crop to amount to 564 million tonnes, up 13% from the prior year.
On Thursday, the FAO announced that its price index stood at 205.8 points in October, up 1.3% from September, due to higher sugar prices. October-on-October, however, prices were down 5.3%.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
