World food prices hold steady despite rise in food oil prices: FAO

World food prices were virtually unchanged in February compared to January, the Rome-based United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said Thursday.

Food oil prices leapt 8 percent compared to January, pushed by a 13-percent rise in palm oil prices, which FAO said surged based on predictions of production problems going forward.

Grains and cereals, including rice, are the biggest component in the index and they fell by less than half a percent.

Among the other commodity groups, sugar prices fell 6.2 percent pushed by strong production levels in Brazil, dairy prices were 2.1 percent lower based mostly on low demand in China, and meat prices rise by less than 1 percent with minor supply issues from Australia and the United States the main

culprits.

The overall food price index rose by the smallest amount, just 0.1 percent, but it was still just the fourth time in the last 23 months when prices rose, though two of those increases

were tiny. Prices are 14.5 percent lower than at the same month in 2015. The last time the FAO index was at the levels shown in January and February was in April 2009.

The next installment of the FAO index, which is based on a basket of 55 goods and 73 price quotations in five major food commodity groups, will be released on April 7. Endit