The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) announced on Friday, January 6, 2022 that, with the war in Ukraine, world prices of food products, namely wheat, maize and sunflower, reached their highest levels ever recorded.

At the same time, the FAO Food Price Index continued to fall for the ninth month in a row, falling by 1.9% in December and even falling below its level of a year ago. It follows the variation in the international prices of a basket of commodities.

Indeed, according to the FAO, global food prices reached their “highest levels on record” in March. For the institution, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has upset markets and raised the risk of a global food crisis. For its part, the UN agency indicates that “global wheat and maize prices reached record levels during the year.” According to her, Ukraine is a major producer of cereals, but also of sunflower oil.

Moreover, the average value of the FAO vegetable oil price index reached a record over the year, when meat and dairy prices even reached “their highest annual levels since 1990.”