São Paulo – An appreciated dollar, weak demand and high supply drove the price of food, as measured by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), to the lowest levels since April 2009. FAO’s Food Price Index, released this Thursday (4) in Rome, reached 150.4 points in January, a drop of 16% over January of last year and of 1.9% over December.
FAO’s Food Price Index is calculated monthly based on the costs of five groups of commodities: vegetal oils, sugar, meat, cereals and dairies. These five groups produce a score. The lower the score, the cheaper the food prices.
The steepest decline in January was registered by sugar, with a drop of 4.1%, because crop conditions in Brazil, the world’s largest producer, were better than expected. The high supply of dairies in New Zealand and European Union drove the dairies group to a slide of 3%. Due to the same reason and the competition among exporters, cereals dropped 1.7%. The prices of vegetal oils slid 1.7% because the price of soya oil declined, and the price of meats dropped 1.1% because of a general retreat, with the exception of pork.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
