World Food Price Index

Why in news?

• The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported that the world food price index fell to a new two-year low recently.
• This decline reversed a previous month’s rebound, with most food commodities experiencing decreases, although rice and sugar prices

About Food Price Index

• FPI, released by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is a measure of the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities.
•  It consists of the average of five commodity group price indices:
  • Cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat and sugar
• These five categories of commodities are selected for calculating FFPI due to their high and strategic importance in global food security and trade.
• The index is calculated by averaging these five commodity group price indices, weighted by the average export shares of each group over the 2014-16 period

PRACTICE QUESTION:

Food Price Index is released by:

(a) Food and Agriculture Organization

(b) UN World Food Programme

(c) International Fund for Agricultural Development

(d) World Bank

Answer