World market prices pick up again

World prices for major agricultural commodities have rebounded on balance at the start of the new year, following a decline in December 2021. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) said today in Rome that the price index it calculates climbed 1.1 percent month-on-month to 135.7 points in January 2022. However, the individual product groups developed contrary. The main contributor to the rise in the overarching index was the performance of vegetable oils, whose sub-index moved up 4.2% in January 2022, reaching an all-time high. This, in turn, was driven by the rise in palm, soybean, rapeseed and sunflower oil prices, according to the FAO. Among other things, significantly higher crude oil prices provided support. Prices for dairy products also rose at an above-average rate. The milk price index climbed by 2.4% compared to December 2021. According to experts in Rome, skim milk powder and butter in particular became more expensive due to declining export supplies from Western Europe. Meanwhile, the price index for meat held up well in the first month of this year, increasing 0.3% from the previous month. According to FAO, quotations for beef reached a new high in the process. The supply of cattle on the world market has not been able to keep up with the brisk demand, it said. Pork prices rose slightly, while poultry and lamb prices continued to decline. Meanwhile, the cereal price index barely moved from the spot. According to FAO, wheat became cheaper due to seasonally large supplies of Australian and Argentine commodities, while corn became more expensive due to the ongoing drought in Argentina and Brazil. The FAO sub-index for sugar fell for the second month in a row, this time by 3.1%. Experts in Rome attributed this to, among other things, the rapid progress of the sugar cane harvest in India and Thailand, as well as rainfall in important growing areas of Brazil.