World food prices edged lower in October, after a series of sharp declines, as prices of oils and sugar rose while dairy and meat prices fell, the UN's food agency said on Thursday, according to Reuters. The Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) price index, which measures monthly price changes for a basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar, averaged 192.3 points in October, down 0.2 percent from September. The figure was 6.9 percent below October 2013. "After six months of decline, the index seems to be stabilising," FAO economist Abdolreza Abbassian said. "Now we have to wait and see how demand responds to the very good supply." FAO revised the index for September up to 192.7 points from a previously reported 191.5, which had been the lowest reading since August 2010. Abbassian said the change to September's number was mainly due to the way meat prices are calculated, and did not change the overall picture. FAO slightly lowered its forecast for world cereals output in 2014 to 2.522 billion tonnes from 2.523 billion tonnes, 3.7 million tonnes below 2013's record harvest. Expectations for larger crops in the EU and Ukraine pushed the world wheat output forecast to 722.6 million tonnes, 0.7 percent above last year's record.
