The EU's Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel has said that global food prices in areas such as grain and dairy are likely to stop increasing, and even decrease, as supply begins catch-up with demand.
Fischer Boel told a meeting of the EU's agriculture ministers that a number of factors had driven up prices, including adverse weather, grain export curbs and US biofuels policy.
"Prices are likely to fluctuate in the medium term around a level that is higher than what we have seen in recent decades. But we do not think that the record levels reached in recent months are likely to persist," she said.
"With the temporary factors diminishing in importance and when the supply response fully sets in, we could see prices abate - by how much, we don't know. But the tendency in the market is pointing downwards, both for cereals and for milk prices."
