Global Food Prices Are Creeping Up Again
Following a period of recovery from the dual shocks of the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, global food commodity prices have started to creep up again this year. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the FAO Food Price Index climbed to 128 points in June 2025, indicating a 28-percent increase in global food prices compared to the 2014-2016 base period. While that's down from a peak of 160 in March 2022, shortly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, it's up almost six percent from June 2024 and roughly 35 percent from the 2019 average.
After an initial decline in food prices due to a demand shock at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, food prices had surged throughout 2021, as supply chain disruptions affected many goods during the pandemic and harvest setbacks also added to the development. Between April 2020 and February 2022, global food prices rose more than 50 percent, which is when things were made even worse by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent blockage of the country's vital grain exports. Following the initial disruption of food exports from Ukraine, the Black Sea Grain Initiative and, after its end, alternative shipping routes have enabled the country to resume these vital exports, both for Ukraine's economy and global food security.
As our chart shows, food commodity prices had returned to mid-2021 levels in 2023, but never fell back to the levels seen before the pandemic. In early 2024, food prices started to climb again, worsening the outlook for global food security. According to the FAO, the average daily cost of a healthy diet climbed to $4.46 at purchasing power parity in 2024, leaving 2.6 billion people unable to afford it.