(Agence Ecofin) – After an upward cycle between 2020 and 2022, the prices of the most consumed basic foodstuffs in the world began to decline in 2023. This trend was confirmed during the past year.
In 2024, the main food products traded on world markets (cereals, oils, meat, sugar and dairy products) saw their prices fall by 2.1%.
The information was announced by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on October 3. The global index which tracks the evolution of international prices of these commodities stood at 122 points compared to 124.5 points a year earlier.
This is the second consecutive year of decline in this indicator, but a level still higher than the average recorded between 2015 and 2020 (95.3 points).
In 2024, cereals and sugar contributed the most to the overall decline with respective drops of 13.3% and 13.2% in their indices. This is particularly thanks to the prospects of high sugar production in Brazil for the 2024/2025 season and the abundance of wheat and rice supplies on the world market.
For their part, vegetable oils which had been the driving force behind the fall in prices in 2023, conversely ended last year with an increase of 9.4%, the largest among basic foodstuffs ahead of dairy products ( 4.7%) and meats (+2.7%). According to the FAO, the appreciation of oil prices was the consequence of a tightening of palm oil supplies in Indonesia and Malaysia.
Although overall prices of agricultural commodities are falling around the world, it must be emphasized that the global food security situation remains worrying.
With the persistence of conflict, extreme weather events and economic disruption, the number of people facing hunger in the world remains high, according to the FAO. According to the UN body which launched a humanitarian appeal, $1.9 billion would be needed in 2025 to enable nearly 50 million people to be able to produce their own food and escape acute food insecurity.
« Emergency agricultural aid constitutes a lifeline and allows people to escape hunger, including in a context of violence and climate shocks. […] In crisis zones, more than two thirds of the populations live through agriculture. Yet, too often, only a tiny portion of humanitarian aid is allocated to protecting agricultural livelihoods “, said Ms. Beth Bechdol, Deputy Director-General of FAO.
As a reminder, of the envelope of $1.8 billion requested for its humanitarian interventions in 2024, the FAO indicates that it was only able to mobilize 22% of this amount in the middle of the year to assist 20 million of people in countries in crisis.
Espoir Olodo
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