News Desk :
The global vegetable oil price index decreased by 5.7 per cent in April, shedding almost a third of the increase registered in March, as demand rationing pushed down prices for palm, sunflower and soya bean oils. Uncertainties about export availabilities out of Indonesia, the world’s leading palm oil exporter, contained further declines in international prices, said the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in a report on Friday.
The information on oil prices decreasing in the international market came a day after Bangladesh Thursday slapped a major increase in soya bean oil price. With the new set price, packaged soya bean oil will be sold by Tk 198 a litre, and unpackaged item’s price to Tk 180 a litre.
After the essential cooking oil disappeared from the local market ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr, the biggest religious festival of the Muslims celebrated on Tuesday, the oil refiners announced the increased prices on Thursday.
However, nearly 25 million tonnes of grains are stuck in Ukraine and unable to leave the country due to infrastructure challenges and blocked Black Sea ports including Mariupol. The blockages are seen as a factor behind high food prices which hit a record high in March in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, before easing slightly in April.
The FAO report said that world food prices eased slightly in April after hitting a record high in March, but global food security remained a concern because of the difficult market conditions.
FAO food price index, which tracks monthly changes in the international prices of a basket of commonly-traded food commodities, averaged 158.5 points in April, down 0.8 per cent from the all-time high reached in March.
‘The small decrease in the index is a welcome relief, particularly for low-income food-deficit countries, but still food prices remain close to their recent highs, reflecting persistent market tightness and posing a challenge to global food security for the most vulnerable,’ said FAO chief
economist Máximo Torero Cullen.
Although it declined month-on-month, the April index was 29.8 per cent higher than a year earlier.
The agency’s cereal price index fell 0.7 per cent in April after a 17 per cent jump in March. While maize prices dropped 3.0 per cent, wheat prices rose 0.2 per cent.
FAO said wheat was hit by the blockage of ports in Ukraine and worries over crop conditions in the United States.
Rice prices in the international market increased by 2.3 per cent from their March levels, buoyed by strong demand from China and the Near East, FAO data showed.
Sugar prices increased by 3.3 per cent ethanol prices and concerns over the slow start of the 2022 harvest in Brazil, the world’s largest sugar exporter, FAO said.
The meat price index rose 2.2 per cent and the dairy index added 0.9 per cent.
In separate cereal supply and demand estimates on Friday, the FAO projection of world wheat production in 2022 to 782 million tones.
The forecast incorporates an expected 20 per cent reduction in the harvested area in Ukraine and a projected decline in output in Morocco.
Ukraine had been the world’s fourth largest exporter of maize (corn) in the 2020/21 season and the number six wheat exporter, according to International Grains Council data.
“It’s an almost grotesque situation we see at the moment in Ukraine with nearly 25 mln tonnes of grain that could be exported but that cannot leave the country simply because of lack of infrastructure, the blockade of the ports,” Josef Schmidhuber, FAO deputy director, Markets and Trade Division told a Geneva press briefing via Zoom.
Schmidhuber said the full silos could result in storage shortages during the next harvest in July and August.
“Despite the war the harvest conditions don’t look that dire. That could really mean there’s not enough storage capacity in Ukraine, particularly if there’s no wheat corridor opening up for export from Ukraine,” he said.
Another concern is reports that some grain storage had been destroyed in the fighting in Ukraine, he added, without giving details.
Since Moscow launched what it calls a “special military operation” in late February, Ukraine has been forced to export grain by train over its western border or from its small Danube river ports rather than by sea.
Earlier this week, the head of the World Trade Organization told Reuters she was “seriously worried” about spiraling food prices and seeking solutions alongside other partners.
“It would really help the world if we could evacuate this grain (from Ukraine),” Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said. “There’s a serious risk of food prices going up and spiraling out of affordability that could lead to more hunger.”
