ODI’s food prices updates focus on tracking international prices of key staple cereals maize, rice, and wheat, and provide commentary on events in markets that affect these prices. They also follow international food and commodity price indices.

This edition focuses on food prices from mid December 2012 to mid February 2013.

Key points:

• Summer harvests in the Southern Hemisphere are likely to see a record maize crop: a relief given very low stocks of maize.
• Prices of maize and wheat have fallen back slightly, but at US$310 a tonne for maize, US$339 a tonne for wheat, remain high.
• Rice harvests will equal last year’s record. Increasingly, exports from India and Vietnam are overtaking those from Thailand. Their prices are falling and are now well below the Thai benchmarks.