Food Prices
Food prices matter for producers and consumers. They impact farmer’s incomes, and they matter for how much – and what foods – families can afford.
The price of foods gives an important indicator of the balance between agricultural production and market demand. When supplies are tight, prices tend to rise, which can have a significant impact on their affordability for consumers.
In low-to-middle-income countries, a large share of the population is employed in agriculture. Producers typically benefit from higher food prices; consumers from lower prices. Food markets can therefore have a strong impact on food affordability, hunger and undernourishment, and dietary quality.
On this page, you can find data, visualizations, and writing on global and country-level food prices and expenditures, the affordability of food, and how this has changed over time.
Research & Writing
Three billion people cannot afford a healthy diet
A healthy, nutritious diet is much more expensive than a calorie sufficient one. As a result, three billion people cannot afford a healthy diet.
Engel's Law: Richer people spend more money on food, but it makes up a smaller share of their income
How does spending on food change as incomes rise?
Smallholders produce one-third of the world’s food, less than half of what many headlines claim
Most of the world's farmers are smallholders. They are also often the poorest. How much of the world's food do they produce?
Interactive Charts on Food Prices
Share of population that cannot afford a healthy diet
Food expenditure per person
Share of consumer expenditure spent on food
Share of population that cannot afford a calorie sufficient diet
Annual food expenditure vs. total consumer expenditure
Average income of large-scale food producers
Average income of small-scale food producers
Cost of a calorie sufficient diet as a share of average food expenditure
Cost of a healthy diet as a share of average expenditure on food
Cost of a nutrient adequate diet as a share of average food expenditure
Daily cost of a calorie sufficient diet
Daily cost of a healthy diet
Daily cost of a nutrient adequate diet
Daily cost of foods in a healthy diet
Food expenditure as a share of family disposable income in the United States
Food expenditure per person in the United StatesBy place of expenditure
Global commodity price index of cereal crops and petroleum
Indicator of food price anomalies
Long-term global prices of food commodities
Number of people that cannot afford a calorie sufficient diet
Number of people that cannot afford a healthy diet
Number of people that cannot afford a nutrient adequate diet
Share of consumer expenditure spent on alcohol and tobacco
Share of countries recording high food prices
Share of expenditure spent on food vs. food expenditure per person
Share of expenditure spent on food vs. total consumer expenditure
Share of population that cannot afford a nutrient adequate diet
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Our articles and data visualizations rely on work from many different people and organizations. When citing this topic page, please also cite the underlying data sources. This topic page can be cited as:
Hannah Ritchie, Pablo Rosado and Max Roser (2023) - “Food Prices” Published online at OurWorldinData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/food-prices' [Online Resource]BibTeX citation
@article{owid-food-prices,
author = {Hannah Ritchie and Pablo Rosado and Max Roser},
title = {Food Prices},
journal = {Our World in Data},
year = {2023},
note = {https://ourworldindata.org/food-prices}
}
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