Food prices

Poor harvests and increased demand, particularly from China, have forced up food prices on world markets over the past year. America's stocks of coarse grains are the lowest for 15 years. Recent dry weather in northern Europe may force millers to import wheat. Despite record coffee exports in the year to March, there is a shortage of high-grade arabica beans and prices have topped $3 per pound, the highest since 1977. Orange juice is at a near four-year high, after the lowest supplies in a decade in 2010. Beetles have attacked coconuts in Thailand, reducing yields of oil and milk. In contrast, cocoa output will rise this season and more is on the market since the end of the civil war in the Côte d'Ivoire; prices have fallen.