“Drought in some areas and heavy rain in others are keeping world food prices near record levels, threatening the food supply for poorer, food-importing countries,” the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in its biannual report (.pdf) on Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reports (Rai/Henshaw/Moffett, 6/8). The report predicts that volatile food price spikes are “likely to prevail for the rest of the year, and into 2012,” the Guardian’s “Data Blog” reports (Provost, 6/7).

FAO also published its monthly food price index, which “showed that global food prices … dropped by one percent in May. Declines in the prices of cereals and sugar were responsible for the slight decrease in the May index, says FAO, adding that this offset increases in meat and dairy prices,” the U.N. News Centre notes (6/7).