Strong rural-urban linkages are increasingly seen as key to achieving sustainable livelihoods and food security in developing countries. However, not all linkages are positive and, although this is recognised in literature, few explore their potential unfavourable characteristics. Based on...

Dramatically increased international agricultural commodity prices from 2007 to mid-2008 brought food inflation and greater incidence of poverty and malnutrition to developing countries. Higher food prices in 2011 threaten to repeat that crisis. The international community responded strongly to...

Since the 2007-08 food crisis, many thoughtful analyses have addressed the causes and impacts of high and volatile international food prices and proposed solutions to the crisis. These studies have covered global as well as local food price dynamics and policy reactions. The food price problem...

The overall goal of this paper is to analyse the political economy of food price policies in China during the global food crisis. The results show that given China's unique economic and political context and the nature of its agricultural markets, the government's reaction to the crisis was...

The policy of allocation of food grains under rationing has been very ad hoc in India with allocation being fixed on a 'historical basis'. This paper uses four sets of pooled equations for predicting stable levels of per capita consumption of rice and wheat in physical terms in rural and urban...

We evaluate the impact of the rise in food prices during 2006-2008 on the poverty and extreme poverty rates in Mexico. We concentrate on the poor's consumption of staple foods, and analyze the change in their consumption brought about by changed prices. We also allow households receiving income...

As part of a “Regional Initiative on Water Scarcity in the NENA Region”, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has been proposing a practical tool for the assessment of investment projects, called the Food Supply Cost Curve (FSCC). This chapter illustrates the concept of the Food...

The study analyzes food inflation trends in India over the last decade. Annual trends show that different commodities have contributed to food inflation in different years and that no single commodity shows uniformly high inflation. A decomposition exercise shows that eggs, meat, fish, milk,...

Policy making in food security is at a crossroads in India, particularly for the rice crop. Whereas India has emerged as a leading rice exporter over the last two years, the government has also introduced a large food subsidy program called the National Food Security Act. The program requires...

As part of a “Regional Initiative on Water Scarcity in the NENA Region”, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has been proposing a practical tool for the assessment of investment projects, called the Food Supply Cost Curve (FSCC). This chapter illustrates the concept of the Food...