Sharjah24 - Reuters: World food prices rebounded in January and remained near 10-year highs, led by a jump in the vegetable oils index, the U.N. food agency said on Thursday.

The Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) food price index , which tracks the most globally traded food commodities, averaged 135.7 points last month against an upwardly revised 134.1 in December. That figure was previously given as 133.7.

Higher food prices have contributed to a broader surge in inflation as economies recover from the coronavirus crisis and the FAO has warned that the higher costs are putting poorer populations at risk in countries reliant on imports.

Rome-based FAO also raised its projection of global cereal production in 2021 to 2.793 billion tonnes from a previous estimate of 2.791 billion tonnes, according to its cereal supply  and demand outlook.