FAO reports minor drop in food prices for July despite rising meat and oil prices

Shafaq News/ On Friday, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) announced that food prices experienced a slight decrease in July.

FAO's data noted that rising meat, vegetable oil, and sugar prices partly countered the drop in the index of cereals.

The FAO's price index, which monitors key global food commodities, averaged 120.8 points in July, down from 121.0 in June. The June figure was revised after initially being given as 120.6 points.

Before July, the FAO index had increased for four straight months after reaching a three-year low in February, as food prices receded from a record peak set in March 2022, after the Russian war on Ukraine, a major crop exporter.

The July value was 3.1% lower than a year ago and 24.7% below its peak in 2022.