WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd April, 2022) The US Agriculture Department's (USDA) newly released update to its Food Price Outlook for 2022 shows that food costs more and it is likely prices will continue to increase because of a range of factors, the USDA said in its report on Friday.
"All food prices are now predicted to increase between 4.5 and 5.5 percent," the report said. "Food price increases are expected to be above the increases observed in 2020 and 2021. In 2022, food-at-home prices are predicted to increase between 3 and 4 percent, and food-away-from-home prices are predicted to increase between 5.5 and 6.5 percent. Price increases for food away from home are expected to exceed historical averages and the inflation rate in 2021."
The USDA said the price increases will be piled on top of the ones consumers have already been forced to bear in the past year as the nation comes out of a COVID global pandemic; disruption of United States' national supply chain and uncertainty on global markets.
USDA also said the cost of all food is predicted to increase between 4.5 and 5.5 percent; prices of food-away-from-home should bump up to between 5.5 and 6.5 percent; and the cost of food-at-home should see between 3.0 and 4.0 percent rise in 2022.
Researchers point to inflation, the Federal Reserve's decision to increase interest rates in an attempt to suffocate inflation and the conflict in Ukraine as all contributing to what they describe as upward and downward pressures on food prices.
Rapid increases in the consumption of dairy products have driven up retail prices in recent months. After substantial price increases in January and February, the forecast for fats and oils, fresh fruits, processed fruits and vegetables, sugars and sweets, cereals and bakery products, nonalcoholic beverages and other foods is that consumers will be paying higher prices. Meanwhile, wholesale dairy prices, farm-level fruit prices, farm-level soybean and wholesale fats and oils prices, and farm-level wheat and wholesale wheat flour prices are all slated to surge.
