The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) sugar price index rose by 14% from May to June as the market reacted to a predicted shortage in Brazil.The index reached 359 points, albeit 15% below its thirty-year high earlier in the year, the FAO said today (7 July). The recent price rise reflects short-term demand against tight exportable availabilities, notably in Brazil, it said. “The sugar prices have been very volatile over the past month,” FAO analyst Elmamoun Amrouk told just-food... ...Read more »

A major international report has predicted that average food commodity prices will be much higher this decade than the last. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) and the Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) have projected maize costs will be almost 20% higher this decade on average, and rice more than 15% higher. It also predicts that butter prices will soar worldwide and stay high, rising more than 45%, with poultry prices increasing 30% to 35%. Wheat prices are... ...Read more »

World food prices surged to a new historic peak in January, for the seventh consecutive month, according to the updated FAO Food Price Index, a commodity basket that regularly tracks monthly changes in global food prices. The Index averaged 231 points in January and was up 3.4 percent from December 2010. This is the highest level (both in real and nominal terms) since FAO started measuring food prices in 1990. Prices of all monitored commodity groups registered strong gains in January, except for... ...Read more »

The first global guidelines for bycatch management and reduction of fishing discards were released recently by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. They now go to the Committee on Fisheries for endorsement when it meets in Rome at the end of the month. The guidelines were agreed by fisheries experts from 35 countries who met at FAO last month. The guidelines cover all types of bycatch including discards, that is, fish that are caught accidently and then thrown back into the sea either... ...Read more »

Global food prices last month reached the highest since records began, exceeding the 2008 highs that sparked riots across the globe, according to figures from the UN. An index of food commodities tracked by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) rose for a sixth straight month to 215 points, above the previous high of 213.5 in June 2008, the agency said in a monthly report. Sugar prices are at their highest in ten years, reaching 182 points and climbing for a third year in a row.... ...Read more »

West African farmers have succeeded in cutting the use of toxic pesticides, increasing yields and incomes and diversifying farming systems as a result of an international project promoting sustainable farming practices.Around 100 000 farmers in Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali and Senegal are participating in a community-driven training programme (West African Regional Integrated Production and Pest Management (IPPM) Programme) executed by FAO. Working in small groups, called Farmer Field Schools, smallholders... ...Read more »

World food prices have climbed to their highest level for over two years, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has said. The FAO said commodity price pressures show little sign of abating and food prices overall have undergone a surge. In the FAO’s latest Food Outlook Global Market Analysis, the organisation’s index of food prices is at its highest level since July 2008 and only eight points off the record high noted in June 2008. The index, which measures average monthly... ...Read more »

Floods and droughts in major grain producing countries this year have triggered a sharp increase in food prices, highlighting the vulnerability of the world’s food production systems and agricultural markets. Such developments are likely to reoccur more frequently and with greater intensity in the decades to come due to climate change. Yet while there are many examples of how the agricultural sector can both become more resilient to climate change and reduce its own sizeable carbon emissions,... ...Read more »

International community must be aware of possibility of even higher food prices in 2011 International food import bills could pass the one trillion dollar mark in 2010 with prices in most commodities up sharply from 2009, FAO said yesterday. In the latest edition of its Food Outlook report, the agency also issued a warning to the international community to prepare for harder times ahead unless production of major food crops increases significantly in 2011. Food import bills for the world’s... ...Read more »

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) announced today that Austral Fisheries’ and Australian Longline’s Heard Island and McDonald Islands (HIMI) toothfish fishery has entered full assessment for MSC certification.To be conducted by independent certification body Scientific Certification Systems (SCS), the assessment will evaluate the Southern Ocean fishery against the MSC standard for well-managed and sustainable fisheries, which examines the sustainability of the fish stock, the environmental... ...Read more »