The volatility of food prices has always concerned national governments, especially those of open developing economies, as it undermines their perceived national food security. A common policy approach has been to partially insulate their domestic market from international food price...

For more than a century, government policies have grossly distorted resource use in agriculture, both within and between countries. Earnings from farming in many developing countries have been depressed by a prourban bias in own-country policies as well as by governments of richer countries...