LONDON- The United Nations world food price index eased slightly in July according to data released on Friday, with a decline in the index for cereals offset in part by increases for meat, vegetable oils and sugar.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s price index, which tracks the most globally traded food commodities, averaged 120.8 points in July, down from 121.0 in June. The June reading was revised after initially being given as 120.6.

The FAO Cereals Price Index declined 3.8 percent to its lowest level in nearly four years with global export prices for all major cereals falling for the second consecutive month.

Wheat prices fell on seasonal availability from ongoing winter wheat harvests in the northern hemisphere and favorable conditions for spring wheat crops in Canada and the US the FAO said.

“Maize (corn) export prices also declined as harvests in Argentina and Brazil progressed ahead of last year’s pace and crop conditions in the United States remained robust,” the report added.

Prior to July, the FAO food price index had risen for four consecutive months after hitting a three-year low in February as food prices receded from a record peak set in March 2022, following Russia’s invasion of fellow crop export major Ukraine.

The July value was 3.1 percent down on its level one year ago and 24.7 percent below its 2022 high point.

Earlier, the UN said a goal to eliminate global hunger by 2030 looks increasingly impossible to achieve, with the number of people suffering chronic hunger barely changed over the past year.

The annual State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report said around 733 million people faced hunger in 2023 — one in 11 people globally and one in five in Africa — as conflict, climate change and economic crises take their toll.

David Laborde, director of the division within the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) which helps prepare the survey, said that although progress had been made in some regions, the situation had deteriorated at a global level.

“We are in a worse situation today than nine years ago when we launched this goal to eradicate hunger by 2030,” he told Reuters, saying challenges such as climate change and regional wars had grown more severe than envisaged even a decade ago.

If current trends continue, about 582 million people will be chronically undernourished at the end of the decade, half of them in Africa, the report warned.

A broader objective to ensure regular access to adequate food has also stalled over the past three years, with 29% of the global population, or 2.33 billion people, experiencing moderate or severe food insecurity in 2023.

Underscoring stark inequalities, some 71.5% of people in low-income countries could not afford a healthy diet last year, against 6.3% in high-income countries.

While famines are easy to spot, poor nutrition is more insidious but can nonetheless scar people for life, stunting both the physical and mental development of babies and children, and leaving adults more vulnerable to infections and illnesses.