UN Geneva Press Briefing the latest FAO's Food Price Index

Mr. Josef Schmidhuber, Deputy Director, Markets and Trade Division at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), briefed UN based correspondents on. the latest FAO's Food Price Index. Mr. Schmidhuber said there was a stabilization of food prices at a very high level, although prices were slightly below the levels reached in March. This was due to high prices for vegetables and cereals, and there had been massive run-ups in prices for transformed goods such as rape-seed to oil. Food prices remained very high, and this took a toll on global food security. The index was down by 0.8% in April, still nearly 30% above the level characteristic for prices a year ago.

Cereal prices were going down slightly, wheat prices were going up. It was an almost grotesque situation: in Ukraine there were nearly 25 million tons that could be exported, but could not leave the company due to blockades at ports. Harvest conditions in Ukraine did not look dire, and therefore there may be a lack of storage capacity in Ukraine. Rice was going up in price, a new phenomenon, and this could be a harbinger of things to come. Vegetable oils were dropping in price. Meat and poultry prices were up across the board. Dairy and sugar prices were also rising, as more sugar cane was going into ethanol, which restricted supply. There was a very good crop in India, however, which should keep a lid on sugar prices.

Responding to a question on the situation in Ukraine, Mr. Schmidhuber said that approximately 14 million tons of grain should be available for export, but 25 million were usually exported from the country. Current winter crops were all sown between September-October 2021. They were mostly in areas unaffected by the conflict. About 50% of the summer crops had been sown already, and hopefully a certain amount more would be sown. In response to another question, he clarified that most grain exports would normally be going through Black Sea ports.

Responding to a further question, he said that he did not know how much of the basic infrastructure and inputs would be available for harvesting. Overall, however, the current problem was not necessarily one of availability, but one of access. There was enough grain to go around, but it wasn’t moving to the places where it was needed. Asked whether Russian troops were looting grain storage and deliberately destroying farmland and livestock to escalate the crisis and use food as a weapon, Mr. Schmidhuber said that there was anecdotal evidence to this effect, but there was no statistical data.

Source: UN Information System in Geneva