The food price updates focus on tracking international prices of key staple cereals (maize, rice, and wheat), and provide commentary on events in markets that affect them. They also follow international food and commodity price indices.

This update focuses on events following the arrival of El Niño in 2015 - one of the strongest occurrences on record.

Harvests from Argentina, Australia and Brazil are surprisingly little affected. Meanwhile, for Eastern and Southern Africa the consequences are grim. Southern Africa is facing large harvest failures with higher food prices, lost incomes for farmers and food insecurity.

Steve Wiggins and Sharada Keats