Conflicts and extreme weather pushing global food prices higher, warns UN

Global food prices have hit a four-year high, the United Nations has warned.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported on Friday that its Food Price Index climbed for a third straight month to 133.3 points in August.

That pushed the measure to its highest level since late 2022, as wars and weather impact supplies, the agency said.

Every category on the index – cereals, vegetable oils, sugar, meat and dairy – rose over the month.

FAO chief economist, Maximo Torero, said the rise is being driven by several factors.

“Climate shocks, geopolitical tensions and disrupted trade logistics are converging to tighten supply expectations,” he said in a statement.

That risk was clearest in sugar, which rose fastest of all the categories tracked, up almost 12 percent from July to its highest point in a year.

Cereal prices climbed more than two percent to their highest level in over two years.

Wheat and maize both became more expensive as military strikes disrupted shipping through the Black Sea, a major route for Russian and Ukrainian grain exports.

Fertiliser supplies faced separate strain from the conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran. The Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway off Iran’s coast that is being blockaded by both the US and Iran, carries much of the world’s fertiliser trade.

Those increases matter well beyond supermarket shelves, since higher wholesale food costs tend to filter through to consumer prices in the months that follow.

The risk is heightened by global warming, as well as the return of El Nino, the naturally occurring Pacific Ocean warming pattern that disrupts weather worldwide.

The heatwaves that gripped Europe this summer led to a drop in crop yields, while El Nino threatens production in Asia.

The World Food Programme, the UN agency that coordinates emergency food aid, has warned that the weather phenomenon could push another 50 million people into acute hunger by the end of next year.