São Paulo – The price index measured monthly by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) recorded in July its lowest point since September 2009. It’s calculated based on the price of five groups of commodities: dairies, vegetable oils, cereals, sugar and meat. In July, the index stood at 164.6 points, a 1% decline over June of this year and a 19.4% drop in comparison to July 2014.
In a press release this Thursday (6th), from Rome, FAO says that a price decline of dairies and vegetable oils took the index to its lowest level in almost six years and compensated the price increase of cereals and sugar.
Prices of dairies dropped 7.2% over June due to weaker demand in China, the Middle East and North Africa and to the largest milk production in the European Union countries. The price of vegetable oils, in turn, stayed 5.5% below the expected in June due to the increase of production of palm oil at South Asia and low prices and high availability of soybean oil in South America.
The price of meat remained stable. The price of beef went up, however, it was compensated by lower prices of pork and mutton and the stable price of poultry.
In turn, the price of sugar and cereals increased. Sugar is 2.5% more expensive in July than in June due to a weaker crop than expected in the main producing region in Brazil, according to FAO. Meanwhile, cereals increased 2% over June because bad climate in North America and Europe impacted the prices of maize and wheat. Even so, the FAO’s index that measures the cost of the cereals group stood 10.1% below the one registered in July of last year.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
