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Global food prices rose in January for the first time in six months and may show another rise for February, as concern about bad weather in main growing regions boosted grain and vegetable oil values.

Global food prices, which have been falling since July 2011, rose nearly two per cent from the previous month, with the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) food price index averaging 214 points.

“It is a pause in a downward trend rather than reversal, with a lot of unpredictability,” the FAO’s senior economist Abdolreza Abbassian believes, adding that high energy prices, exchange rate and strong equity markets could push food prices higher this month.

World food prices measured by the FAO hit a record in February 2011, helping fuel inflation and stoke the unrest of the Arab Spring. Prices, however, dropped in the second half of 2011.
 
FAO’s food price index, which measures monthly price changes for a food basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar, remained seven per cent below the January 2011 figure.

Global food prices were set to fall further this year as a weaker world economy dampens consumer demand while food supplies increase, but a possible rise in oil prices could reverse the trend, the World Bank said last month.

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