FAO food price index reaches highest level since 2022, outlet reports

The Food and Agriculture Organization said its Food Price Index averaged 136.0 points in September 2026, the highest level since November 2022. The index tracks global agricultural markets. The reading came as the agency’s cereal measure rose 5.1% from August and 17.2% compared with a year earlier, according to the account published by IBTimes UK.

The FAO’s vegetable oil index also moved higher, gaining 0.9% month on month and reaching a level 18.3% above its position a year earlier. Those figures indicate that price increases extended across more than one food category, though the account does not give the index’s component prices or explain how each category contributed to the overall reading.

IBTimes UK attributed pressure on food supplies to shipping disruption, increased fertiliser costs and drought. The article said these factors threaten supplies of wheat, rice and other staples.

It did not quantify the effects of each pressure separately, so the index figures show the price movement while the listed pressures describe the outlet’s account of the supply backdrop. Wheat prices rose by more than 30% in 2026, while rice prices in key Asian exporting countries climbed between 10% and 13%, Reuters reported, as quoted by IBTimes UK.

Reuters also reported freight-rate increases of about 50% on some major routes, including a route linking the Black Sea with Southeast Asia. These figures offer specific examples of movements affecting staple crops and transport, but do not establish how much each contributed to the FAO index.

The FAO’s supply outlook was less adverse than the price increases alone might suggest. It projected world cereal stocks of about 950 million tonnes at the end of the 2026/27 season, equivalent to a stocks-to-use ratio of 31.7%.

The agency said that level still indicated relatively comfortable supplies, providing a qualification to the article’s description of mounting pressures. In the United Kingdom, the Office for National Statistics put annual inflation for food and non-alcoholic beverages at 1.3% in August 2026, unchanged from July and the lowest since September 2021.

The outlet also said the supply pressures raised the prospect of higher grocery bills for UK households and that industry forecasts pointed to higher food inflation in 2027. Those are forward-looking concerns; the reported ONS figure describes the earlier August rate, not a measured September or 2027 outcome.