The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s monthly food price index for June 2025 increased 0.5%, countered by decreases in sugar and cereals.
According to a July 4 release by the FAO in Rome, the world’s food price index for June averaged 128.0 points. It rose by half percentage above the index of May 2025 due to elevated prices of meat, vegetable oil and select dairy products.
As an aggregator of month-long quotations by traders, the latest FAO index was 5.8% higher annually than the June 2024 equivalent.
Across the Counter
Countering the pricing excesses was the sugar index, which fell by 5.2% month-on-month, to 103.7 points.
This marks the fourth consecutive monthly decline, and the lowest performance since April 2021 when it had touched 100.0 points.
The poor price run owes to a supply rally following Brazil’s recent sugarcane harvest in June, which whetted sugar crushing.
Not helping either are related dairy products such as skim milk and powder, whose rates depreciated from low demand.
The strong outsider in the dairy counter was cheese, whose pricing appreciated for the 3rd straight month from robust East Asia demand.
The cereal index, in its part, was down 1.6% month-on-month, to 107.4 points, but showed price versatility across categories. Lesser grains like barley and sorghum manifested price depreciation while major ones either improved or sharply declined.
While wheat had dynamic prices due to weather concerns in Europe and North America, maize lost from surpluses in South America.
The next FAO price index will be on August 8 and will reveal whether sugar and cereals will have edged global food pricing. To learn more on the production crossroads between these two food vitals, peruse the statistics below.
Global Sugar and Cereals Production Statistics
Sugar crops and cereals are important for they make sweetened bread staples, hence the importance of ample production. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), worldwide major food crop output rose 3% in 2023 to 9.9 billion tonnes from 2022 levels. This marked a whopping 27% production increment since 2010.
Cereal production also improved by 2% in 2023 from 2022’s levels. This was thanks to robust output of maize, rice and wheat, which made up 91% of all output. Sugar crops such as cane and beets in their part appreciated in output by 122 million tonnes in 2023, above 2022 levels. Cane led output at over 2 billion tonnes while beets contributed 281 million tonnes.
How much cereals does the world consume annually?
In the 2025-26 marketing year, the world’s cereal utilization projection was at 2.9 billion tonnes. This was around 0.8% higher than in the 2024-25 period, according to the FAO.
Is worldwide sugar consumption high?
The world consumes around 177.8 billion tonnes of sugar per year, as of 2020-21, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).