2 April 2015, Rome--- The FAO Food Price Index continued to decline in March, dropping 1.5 percent from February and 18.7 percent below its level a year earlier. A sharp fall in the price for sugar – which reached its lowest level since February 2009 – together with dipping prices for some vegetable oils, cereals and meat, more than offset a rise in dairy prices and contributed to the lower index, which in March averaged 173.8 points. The FAO Food Price Index is a trade-weighted index that tracks prices of five major food commodity groups on international markets. It aggregates price sub-indices of cereals, meat, dairy products, vegetable oils and sugar. Also released is FAO’s latest Cereal Supply and Demand Brief in which the cereal output estimate for 2014 was raised to 2.544 million.