International food prices have dropped 19% in the previous year, making it a four-year consecutive decline in the industry, according to the United Nations Food Agency.
The most affected products were the dairy, which prices fell by 28.5% compared to its global price in 2014, hitting the lowest since 2009. Sugar prices follows, which reportedly decreased 21% from its worth two years ago.
The prices of vegetable oil were also affected, with products' prices 19% lower than 2014 as well. Cereal, on the other hand, have its prices lowered by 15.4% compared to its global price in 2015. The meat industry also experienced a decline in price with 15.1% as compared the previous year.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the rapid decline in food prices is due to the imbalanced graph of supply and demand-there are abundant resources, yet the public's needs for these products have not dramatically increased in years. The continuous strength of the American dollar is also considered a factor..
"Over the full the index has averaged 164.1 points, nearly 19 per cent less than in 2014, marking the fourth consecutive annual decline," the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said.
The overall food prices index that was averaged 154.1% in December 2015 is 1.5% lower than the one recorded in November 2015, calculating and averaging all food commodities except for sugar and oils. s.
FAO measures the monthly change in international food prices through the Food Price Index. The commodities are measured in five commodity group indices, weighted with the average export shares of each of the groups for 2002-2004.
