Highlights:

While agricultural prices have declined over the past 12 months, food price inflation remains high. FAO's food price index, a measure of the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities, is down 20 percent from year-ago levels. Yet, double-digit food inflation rates are reported in many countries around the world. Food inflation remains elevated in part because of the strong US dollar, which has kept commodity prices high in local currencies, and because post-farmgate costs such as energy, transportation, and food manufacturing costs, which account for a large share of the retail price, remain high due to core inflationary pressures. The poor suffer the most from high food prices as they spend high shares of their incomes on food and have weak capacity to cope with price shocks.