The U.N. food agency reported on Friday that global food prices decreased in December, marking the ninth consecutive month of declines, but increased by more than 14% in 2022 compared to 2021, reaching the highest level ever recorded.
The FAO food price index, which analyzes the prices of the most widely traded food items on a global scale, averaged 132.4 points in December, down from a revised 135.00 points in November.
The benchmark index reached its highest level since records began in 1990 in 2022, averaging 143.7 points for the whole year, an increase of 18.7 points or 14.3% from 2021.
According to the FAO, the dip in the index in December was caused by a sharp decline in the price of vegetable oils on the world market, along with small decreases in the price of grain and meat, but was somewhat offset by slight increases in the price of sugar and dairy.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February of last year, food prices increased as a result of concerns about delays to Black Sea traffic. They have reduced advances in part as a result of a grain export route from Ukraine that is backed by the U.N.
The FAO predicted last year that rising food import costs in 2022 will force the world’s poorest nations to reduce their exports.
According to the company, its food price index is the average of its pricing indices for meat, dairy, cereals, vegetable oils, and sugar, weighted to the average export shares of each group for the years 2014 to 2016.