reply UN food and Agriculture Organization: Global food prices hit record high in February

Rome, March 4 (Reuters) - Global food prices hit a record high in February, rising 24.1 percent from a year earlier, driven by higher vegetable oil and dairy prices, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said on Thursday.The FAO Food Price Index tracks price changes in the world's most actively traded food categories. The index averaged 140.7 points in February, compared with a revised average of 135.4 points in January.Rising food prices have helped fuel a broad surge in inflation as economies recover from the COVID-19 crisis, the report said. The FAO warns that in countries that rely on imports, the rising cost of living is putting poor people at risk.Fao economist Upali Galkti Alachraga was quoted as saying concerns about crop conditions and availability only partly explain the rise in global food prices."The bigger drivers of food price inflation are coming from outside food production, particularly the energy, fertilizer and feed sectors," he said. All of these factors tend to squeeze food producers' profit margins and discourage them from investing and expanding production."Most of the data in the February report was reportedly collected before Russia's "invasion" of Ukraine. Even before the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, concerns about tensions in the Black Sea region were affecting agricultural markets. But analysts warn that a protracted conflict could have a major impact on grain exports.The FAO Vegetable Oil Price Index rose 8.5% in February from a month earlier to a record high, driven by higher prices for palm, soybean and sunflower oil, the agency said. Ukraine and Russia account for about 80 per cent of global sunflower oil exports.The FAO grain price Index was reported to have risen 3 percent month-on-month in February, with corn prices up 5.1 percent and wheat prices up 2.1 percent.The FAO dairy price index rose 6.4 percent month-on-month, the sixth consecutive monthly increase, helped by tight global supplies, while the meat price index rose 1.1 percent in February.By contrast, the sugar price index was the only one to fall, down 1.9 per cent from the previous month, partly because of better production prospects in leading exporters India and Thailand.The FAO also released its first forecast for 2022 cereal production, which sees global wheat production rising to 790 million tons from 775.4 million tons in 2021, partly due to high yields and widespread planting expected in Canada, the United States and Asia, the report said. However, FAO cautioned that the projections do not take into account the potential impact of the Conflict between Russia and Ukraine.