World food prices up 3.9% in October: UN food agency

[ROME] World food prices rose in October, spurred by weather-driven concerns about sugar and palm oil supplies, but remained well below their equivalent level a year ago, the United Nations food agency said on Thursday.

The Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) food price index, which measures monthly changes for a basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar, averaged 162 points in October against 155.9 the month before.

The FAO said this was the sharpest increase since July 2012, however, food on international markets in October was still 16 per cent cheaper than one year ago, it added.

FAO cut its forecast for world cereal output in 2015 to 2.530 billion tonnes, from a previous estimate of 2.534 billion tonnes given last month. It raised its world wheat output forecast for 2015/16 to 736.2 million tonnes from 734.8 million.

REUTERS