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The
Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) price index, which
tracks the most globally traded food commodities, averaged 135.7
points last month, down from 135.9 for October, the agency said
on Friday.
The October figure was unchanged from the FAO's previous
estimate.
Lower readings for cereals, meat and dairy products in November
offset higher prices for vegetable oils and sugar, the FAO said.
Last month's agreement to prolong a U.N.-backed grain export
channel from Ukraine for another 120 days has tempered worries
about war disruption to massive Black Sea trade.
The slight decrease in November meant that the FAO food index is
now only 0.3% above its level a year earlier, the agency said.
The indicator, however, remains at historically high levels
after reaching a 10-year peak in 2021 owing to harvest setbacks
and brisk demand led by China.
The FAO warned last month that expected record food import costs
in 2022 would lead the poorest countries to cut back on shipped
volumes.
In separate cereal supply and demand estimates, the FAO lowered
its forecast for global cereal production in 2022 to 2.756
billion tonnes from 2.764 billion estimated last month.
The forecast was 2% below the estimated output for 2021 and
would mark a three-year low, the FAO said.
The downward revision to the global cereal crop projection
mainly reflected weak maize (corn) prospects in Ukraine, with
the war making post-harvest operations prohibitively expensive,
it said.
Projected world cereal stocks by the end of the 2022/23 season
were revised down by 1.1 million tonnes to 839 million tonnes,
2.2% below the previous season and the lowest level for three
years.
The 2022/23 global cereal stock-to-use ratio, often used as a
supply indicator, would drop to its lowest since 2013/14, but at
a forecast 29.3% it would still represent a relatively
comfortable level, the FAO added.
(Reporting by Gus TrompizEditing by David Goodman)
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