2023-06-15 17:27:22
There is more corn, milk and meat. However, poor countries will have less access to it. Despite more abundant world production in 2023, these nations will have to restrict their imports because of the still high price of certain foodstuffs, the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) warned on Thursday. In total, world food import spending will break a new record in 2023, mainly due to inflation, but this hides disparities between the richest states, able to increase their spending, and the 47 less advanced, mainly located in Africa and unable to follow the increases. In value, their imports will fall by 1.5% this year, warned the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
This decline should even go up to 5% in developing countries that are net importers of food products, such as Tunisia, Egypt or Pakistan, predicts the organization in its biannual report onFood Outlook“. Even if the prices of oils or cereals have come down after the peak reached in March 2022, a few days after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, they remain at high levels today. And those of fruits, vegetables or dairy products continue to progress, “what is holding back demand” in vulnerable countries. The fall in import volumes in these two groups of countries is “a worrying development”and suggests a decrease in their purchasing capacity, according to the FAO.
“These concerns are amplified by the fact that lower international prices for a number of food staples have not translated, or at least not fully, into lower prices at the domestic retail level”, she points out. On the other hand, “While the depreciation of the US dollar helped importers offset rising food prices during the 2007-2008 global food crisis, the opposite effect has occurred in recent years”. This currency, in which most international trade takes place, has generally progressed against the local currencies of importing countries, which has exacerbated the increase in the prices of products at home, explains the agency.
Systems “vulnerable to shocks”
For example, “world maize prices fell by 10.2% between April 2022 and September 2022, but only 4.8% on average when calculated in real local currencies” of these countries. After jumping 18% in 2021 and then 11% in 2022, the global food import bill is expected to rise by 1.5% to $1.98 trillion. “For fruits and vegetables, cereals, sugar and dairy products, the increase will be mainly price-related”while at the same time the volumes of imported oilseeds will increase.
At the same time, most staples – rice, coarse grains (maize, sorghum), oilseeds, sugar, milk or meat, except beef and pork – are expected to be more abundant in 2023-2024. Coarse grain production is expected to increase by 3% to 1 513 million tonnes, “a new record” driven by a harvest expected at the highest level in Brazil. That of wheat, on the other hand, should fall by 3% after the record of the previous season (777 million tonnes), due to a lower harvest in Russia and Australia. Egypt, Indonesia and Turkey are expected to be the world’s three largest wheat importers in 2023-2024.
“Despite this generally positive outlook, global agrifood production systems remain vulnerable to shocks” climatic, geopolitical and economic, which can tip the “delicate balance” between supply and demand, and worsen food insecurity, warned the FAO.
The drought currently affecting northern Europe and the United States, depriving growing crops of water, and fears linked to a Russian withdrawal from the Ukrainian grain agreement are likely to revive rising grain and oilseed prices. 258 million people needed emergency food aid in 2022 compared to 193 million the previous year, several UN agencies warned in May, notably because of the repercussions of the conflict in Ukraine and a drought. history in the Horn of Africa.
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