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World food prices posted their biggest monthly rise for four years in June, buoyed by a surge in sugar and increases for most other edible commodities, the United Nations food agency said on Thursday.
Food prices have been gaining ground since hitting a near seven-year low in January after four straight annual declines, and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Agency (FAO) now expects them to be stable for the next decade.
The 4.2 per cent gain from May was the fifth increase in a row for the index, which measures monthly changes for a basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat and sugar.
Food prices on international markets are now just 1 per cent below the same month last year, the FAO said.
Sugar prices rose 14.8 per cent in June as heavy rains hampered sugar harvesting and affected yields in the world’s largest producer, Brazil, the FAO said. Vegetable oil prices defied the upward trend to slip 0.8 per cent, led by palm oil.
The FAO raised its forecast for world cereal production in the 2016-17 season to 2.544 billion tonnes, 15.3 million tonnes higher than last year but still below 2014’s record harvest.
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