FAO reports says prices of food remained elevated for second month. File
| Photo Credit: SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA

The United Nations food agency’s world price index rose for a second consecutive month in April as higher meat prices and slight gains for vegetable oils and cereals outweighed decreases for sugar and dairy products.

The Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) price index, which tracks the most globally traded food commodities, averaged 119.1 points in April, up from a revised 118.8 points for the previous month, the agency said on May 3.

ALSO READ | Wholesale price inflation rises to three-month high of 0.53% in March

The FAO’s April reading was nonetheless 7.4% below the level a year earlier.

The indicator hit a three-year low in February as food prices continued to move back from a record peak in March 2022 at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of fellow crop exporter Ukraine.

In April, meat showed the strongest gain in prices, rising 1.6% from the prior month. Higher prices for poultry, beef and sheep meat offset a small fall for pork, which was affected by slow demand in Western Europe and from leading importers, especially China, the FAO said.

The FAO’s cereal index inched up to end a three-month decline, supported by stronger export prices for maize (corn). Vegetable oil prices also ticked higher, extending previous gains to reach a 13-month high due to strength in sunflower and rapeseed oil.

The sugar index dropped sharply, shedding 4.4% from March to stand 14.7% below its year-earlier level amid improving global supply prospects.

Dairy prices edged down, ending a run of six consecutive monthly gains.

2024 brings breather on inflation but food prices are still sticky

In separate cereal supply and demand data, the FAO nudged up its estimate of world cereal production in 2023/24 to 2.846 billion metric tons from 2.841 billion projected last month, up 1.2% from the previous year, notably due to updated figures for Myanmar and Pakistan.

For upcoming crops, the agency lowered its forecast for 2024 global wheat output to 791 million tons from 796 million last month, reflecting a larger drop in wheat planting in the European Union than previously expected.

The revised 2024 wheat output outlook was nonetheless about 0.5% above the previous year’s level.

A man covers windows with plywood boards of a building that was heavily damaged following a recent shelling, in the town of Mykolaivka, near Sloviansk in the north of the Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, on March 30, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed a longtime aide and several advisers on Saturday in a continuing reshuffle while Russia unleashed fresh attacks overnight.

Mr. Zelenskyy dismissed top aide Serhiy Shefir from his post of first assistant, where he had served since 2019. The Ukrainian President also let go of three advisers, and two presidential representatives overseeing volunteer activities and soldiers’ rights.

No explanation was given immediately for the latest changes in a wide-reaching personnel shakeup over recent months. It included the dismissal on Tuesday of Oleksii Danilov, who served as secretary of the National Security and Defence Council, and Valerii Zaluzhnyi as head of the armed forces on February 8. He was appointed Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom earlier this month.

Ukraine’s air force said on Saturday that Russia launched 12 Shahed drones overnight, nine of which were shot down, and fired four missiles into eastern Ukraine.

Russia unleashed a barrage of 38 missiles, 75 airstrikes and 98 attacks from multiple rocket launchers over the last 24 hours, Ukraine’s armed forces said in social media posts.

Ukrainian energy company Centrenergo announced on Saturday that the Zmiiv Thermal Power Plant, one of the largest thermal power plants in the eastern Kharkiv region, was completely destroyed following Russian shelling last week. Power outage schedules were still in place for around 1,20,000 people in the region, where 7,00,000 people had lost electricity after the plant was hit on March 22.

Russia has escalated its attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure in recent days, causing significant damage in several regions.

Officials in the Poltava region said Saturday there had been “several hits” to an infrastructure facility, without specifying whether it was an energy facility.

Meanwhile, the toll of Friday’s mass barrage of 99 drones and missiles hitting regions across Ukraine came to light on Saturday, with local officials in the Kherson region on Saturday morning announcing the death of one civilian. A resident of the Dnipropetrovsk region died in a hospital from shell wounds, according to regional Gov. Serhiy Lisak.