Rising world food prices causing concerns among people: IMF

Consumer food inflation peaked in April 2020 even though producer prices of primary commodities, including food and energy, were declining sharply as demand for primary food commodities was disrupted

New Delhi: Global food prices have rallied to multi-year highs, triggered by Covid-19 pandemic-related supply chain disruptions and soaring transport costs, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said. More is likely to come since international food prices are expected to increase by about 25 per cent in 2021 from 2020, wrote IMF`s Christian Bogmans, Andrea Pescatori and Ervin Prifti in a new blog. They are expected to stabilise later this year. The recent sharp increase in international food prices has already slowly started to feed into domestic consumer prices in some regions as retailers, unable to absorb the rising costs, are passing on the increases to consumers. However, food price inflation started increasing before the pandemic. In the summer of 2018, China was hit by an outbreak of African swine fever, wiping out much of China`s hog herd, which represents more than 50 per cent of the world`s hogs.