Food Security and Rural Development
The aim of this work is to provide an overview of the global food situation and prices of the
main food commodities produced worldwide. The time span analysed is from 2010/11 to
2019/20.
First, food price indices will be briefly described and commented.
Secondly, global cereal market trends will be analysed, focusing on production, supply,
utilization, ending stocks and trade. Quantities referring to these elements are expressed in
million tonnes.
Finally, a brief description of stock-to-use ratio and stock-to-disappearance ratio will be given
and the two ratios will be computed and analysed for wheat, coarse grains and rice.
Data have been downloaded from FAO CSDB and AMIS, processed on the attached excel files
and main comments, tables and graphs have been reported in this file.
Food price index - FAO
As we can read on World Food Situation website and as we learned during Food Security
lessons, the food price index is the monthly change in the international price of a basket of
commodities. It is obtained by averaging five commodity group price indices and then
weighting them with the average export share of each group on the base-years 2002-2004.
The five commodities are:
➢Cereal
➢Vegetable Oil
➢Dairy
➢Meat
➢Sugar
Each category contains some sub-commodities. The diary sector, for example, combines
butter, skim milk powder (SMP), whole milk powder (WMP) and cheese1.
1 http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/foodpricesindex/en/
