To no one’s surprise, global food prices are rising “sharply” (UN). We won’t have annual numbers for 2022 for a while, but, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 2021 prices were already setting the trend. Let’s look at food price hikes for the year that was.
Food Price Hikes 2021
2021’s international food prices vaulted over 2020: The FAO’s global Food Price Index (FPI) average for 2021 was 125.7 points, 28.1% higher than in 2020.
Even though the FPI saw a 0.09% decline from November 2021 to year’s end, that period was still up by 23.1% from the same period in 2020.
The Cereal Price Index in 2021 reached its highest annual level since 2012, an increase of 27.2%.
The biggest gainer among the cereals for 2021 was maize, up a whopping 44.1%.
Wheat came in second, at a gain of 31.3%.
Rice prices fared much better, declining by 4%.
The Vegetable Oil Price Index struck a record high, up 65.8% compared with 2020.
The Meat Price Index rose 12.7% for the year.
The Dairy Price Index averaged 16.9% higher than 2020.
And what about 2022? FAO Senior Economist Abdolreza Abbassian said there is “little room for optimism about a return to more stable market conditions” in 2022.