World food prices rose in September to their highest since March 2015, led mainly by sugar, the UN food agency said yesterday.

Except for a small dip in July, the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) food price index has been increasing steadily since January, when it hit a seven-year low.

The index, which measures monthly changes for a basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat and sugar, averaged 170.9 points in September, 2.9 per cent above the month before and 10 per cent higher than the same month last year.

Sugar prices surged 6.7 per cent in September from the previous month, largely because of bad weather in Brazil, the world’s biggest sugar producer and exporter, FAO said. While cereal prices declined slightly, meat edged up and dairy and vegetable oil prices increased.

“A lot of the September increase has to do with sugar, so if sugar were to stop increasing, the index would be more or less flat,” said FAO senior economist Abdolreza Abbassian. “But the scope for big declines is not there.”

FAO raised slightly its forecast for world cereal production in the 2016-2017 season to 2.569 billion tonnes, which would be a new record high, and a 1.5 per cent increase on the previous season. World wheat output is seen at 742.4 million tonnes, up slightly from the previous forecast of 740.7 million tonnes.

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