Global food prices declined from record highs in 2022, the UN says. Except for these two staples

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The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says global prices for food commodities like grain and vegetable oil fell last year from record highs in 2022

ROME — Global prices for food commodities like grain and vegetable oil fell last year from record highs in 2022, when Russia’s war in Ukraine, drought and other factors helped worsen hunger worldwide, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said Friday.

The FAO Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in the international prices of commonly traded food commodities, was 13.7% lower last year than the 2022 average, but its measures of sugar and rice prices growing in that time.

Last month, the index dropped some 10% compared with December 2022. The drop in food commodity prices in 2023 comes despite a difficult year for food security around the world.

Climate effects like dry weather, flooding and the naturally occurring El Nino phenomenon, combined with fallout from conflicts like the war in Ukraine, bans on food trade that have added to food inflation and weaker currencies have hurt developing nations especially.

While food commodities like grain have fallen from painful surges in 2022, the relief often hasn’t made it to the real world of shopkeepers, street vendors and families trying to make ends meet.

More than 333 million people faced acute levels of food insecurity in 2023, according to another U.N. agency, the World Food Program.

Rice and sugar in particular were problematic last year because of climate effects in growing regions of Asia, and prices have risen in response, especially in African nations.

With the exception of rice, the FAO's grain index last year was 15.4% below the 2022 average, ”reflecting well supplied global markets.” That's despite