In U.S. dollar terms, the prices of most commodities have declined from their recent peaks amid concerns of an impending global recession, the report documents. From the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 through the end of September, the price of Brent crude oil in U.S. dollars fell nearly 6 percent. Yet, because of currency depreciations, almost 60 percent of oil-importing emerging-market and developing economies saw an increase in domestic-currency oil prices during this period. Nearly 90 percent of these economies also saw a larger increase in wheat prices in local-currency terms compared to the rise in U.S. dollars. 

Elevated prices of energy commodities that serve as inputs to agricultural production have been driving up food prices. During the first three quarters of 2022, food-price inflation in South Asia averaged more than 20 percent. Food price inflation in other regions, including Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, averaged between 12 and 15 percent. East Asia and the Pacific has been the only region with low food-price inflation, partly because of broadly stable prices of rice, the region’s key staple.