World food prices fell in November for the first time in three months, pulled down by a strong dollar and ample supplies, the United Nations food agency said on Thursday.<\/strong><\/p>\n The Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) food price index, which measures monthly changes for a basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat and sugar, averaged 156.7 points in November against a revised 159.3 points the month before.<\/p>\n The 1.6 percent decreased follows two consecutive months of gains, although food on international markets in November remained 18 percent cheaper than one year ago, FAO said.<\/p>\n The index has been sliding for most of the past 20 months, thanks partly to an abundant global supply, and is still less than two points above a six-year low hit in August.<\/p>\n A strengthening dollar, which is the benchmark currency for commodities, may drive prices lower in coming months, FAO senior economist Abdolreza Abbassian told Reuters.<\/p>\n “All the indications are for the (dollar) exchange rate to rise, especially if the Fed raises interest rates,” Abbassian said.<\/p>\n “Exchange rates have been driving the decline in prices. One cannot exclude further downward pressure on prices in coming months,” he said. One exception may be sugar, he said.<\/p>\n Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said on Wednesday she was “looking forward” to a U.S. interest rate hike that will be seen as a testament to the economy’s recovery from recession. Her comments drove the dollar to its highest level since March 2003. [ID:nL1N13R1ZA]\n FAO cut its forecast for world cereal output in 2015-16 to 2.527 billion tonnes, from a previous estimate of 2.530 billion tonnes. It lowered its world wheat output forecast for 2015\/16 to 734.5 million tonnes from 736.2 million tonnes previously.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" World food prices fall 1.6 percent in November World food prices fell in November for the first time in three months, pulled down by a strong dollar and ample supplies, the United Nations food agency said on Thursday. The Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) food price index, which measures monthly changes for a basket of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":45216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-te-public"],"yoast_head":"\n