World food prices rose to more than a 6.5 year high in February

World food prices continued to rise last month, for the ninth month in a row, reaching a high of more than 6.5 years. Prices of sugar and vegetable oils in particular contributed to further sharp growth. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) said this on Thursday. The FAO World Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in prices for cereals, oilseeds, sugar, meat and dairy products, rose to 116 points in February. This is the highest value of the index since July 2014. In January, the value of the food price index was 113.2 points. It was thus revised slightly downwards, when the FAO originally reported the food price index for the first month of the year at 113.3 points. The prices of sugar and vegetable oils increased the most in February. In the first case, they increased by 6.4 and in the second, the growth reached 6.2 percent. Vegetable oil prices thus reached their highest level in almost nine years. Sugar prices were mainly affected by fears of falling supplies, as demand from Asia grew and, conversely, production fell in several of the world's largest sugar producers. As for vegetable oil prices, they rose to their highest level since April 2012, when markets responded to the continuing rise in palm oil prices. These rose for the ninth month in a row, due to fears of low commodity stocks in the world's largest exporters.