FAO's Food Price Index further dips 2% in July for the third month in a row
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The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) reported that its Food Price Index dropped by 2 per cent last month compared with June mainly on lower grain prices.
The index averaged 205.9 points last month, 4 points (nearly 2 per cent) below its revised value for June and 7 points, or 3.3 per cent, lower than in July 2012. The decline marked the third consecutive monthly drop.
“The decline was driven by lower international prices for grains, soy and palm oil, while sugar, meat and dairy quotations were also down from the previous month,” Vili Fuavao, FAO deputy regional representative for Asia and the Pacific, said during the United Nations organisation’s monthly news briefing at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand.
The FAO index is only one indicator of how prices of selected raw materials used for producing food are behaving at the world level. They may not always reflect the situation at local or national levels but could provide good information to policy-makers about the trend in international markets, the agency said.
Fuavao said the FAO Cereal Price Index averaged 227.7 points in July, down 8.8 points, or 3.7 per cent, from June and as much as 33 points, or nearly 13 per cent, below July last year. The sharp decline reflects falling maize prices as favourable weather boosted hopes of a significant production increase in several leading corn-producing countries.
Meanwhile, FAO continues surveillance programmes for the A(H7N9) bird-flu virus in countries neighbouring China.
Since March 31, the virus in China has struck 134 people, causing 43 deaths, while 87 victims recovered. Of those contracting the disease, about 32 per cent die. Cases were reported from 12 provinces of China including Taiwan.
Fuavao said the FAO and developmental partners had initiated regional coordination, expert consultation on surveillance, risk assessment and risk management including a surveillance framework and risk ranking of countries. Emergency regional surveillance of H7N9 was conducted in countries at risk from the disease.
The countries participating were Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal in South Asia and Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam in Southeast Asia. The surveillance was carried out with US$1 million (Bt31 million) in financial support from the US Agency for International Development.
