Track international food price pressure through FAO monthly food commodity indices.
What this page shows
Food price pages separate international commodity price pressure from domestic affordability and emergency food insecurity. The first production layer is FAO's monthly Food Price Index and five commodity group indices.
The primary charts now come from normalized database observations. Snapshot cards remain useful for latest values, but time series and paired relationships get chart types that match the question.
Database charts
Food Prices over time and in context
These charts use normalized observations from the World Vitals database. Time-series charts show change; scatter plots show paired relationships where the data actually supports comparison.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Global food prices are rising again
The FAO Food Price Index tracks monthly international prices for a basket of traded food commodities.
130.8May 2026
Hover or focus a point for exact date, value, unit, and source.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Cereal prices show staple-food pressure
Cereals are tracked separately because staple grain pressure can move differently from the full food basket.
114.3May 2026
Hover or focus a point for exact date, value, unit, and source.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Vegetable oils are the volatile pressure point
The oils index often reacts strongly to energy markets, biofuel demand, weather, and trade disruption.
185May 2026
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Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Meat prices reached record territory
The FAO meat index helps separate animal-protein market pressure from cereals, dairy, oils, and sugar.
130.5May 2026
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Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Dairy prices are moving differently from the full basket
Dairy can diverge from the headline food index because milk supply cycles and export demand differ.
119.2May 2026
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Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Sugar prices swing with harvests and energy-linked ethanol demand
Sugar is tracked separately because supply expectations and biofuel economics can dominate the signal.
95.1May 2026
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FAO monthly update
Food price pressure now
FAO publishes the Food Price Index monthly. World Vitals stores the headline basket and commodity group indices so the page can show both the broad signal and the category driving the move.
Headline index130.8
May 2026, index, 2014-2016=100
Month change-0.2%
-0.2 points from previous month
Year change+2.9%
+3.7 points from same month last year
Strongest monthly riseSugar
+7.5%
Food130.8
MoM-0.2%
YoY+2.9%
Vegetable Oil185
MoM-4.6%
YoY+21.6%
Meat130.5
MoM+0.1%
YoY+6.3%
Cereal114.3
MoM+2.7%
YoY+4.9%
Dairy119.2
MoM-0.4%
YoY-22.4%
Sugar95.1
MoM+7.5%
YoY-13.1%
Metric snapshots
Food Prices latest values
Snapshot and live-rate cards are kept separate from historical charts so they do not pretend to show a trend.
Economyestimated live
Economic output this year
$39.41T
current US dollars2024estimated live
Live-rate estimate from latest annual world GDP. It is an economic tempo indicator, not real-time accounting.