The paper examines the underlying political economy motivations of the government's policy responses to food price increases in 2007/08 focusing particularly on maize as the main staple crop. The main government policy responses to the food price spikes in 2007/08 were price control, bans on...

Since 2006, global prices and price volatility for foodgrain commodities have spiked frequently and dramatically. Such spikes have had the heaviest economic and social impact on developing nations, where agriculture accounts for a sizable portion of economic activity. We demonstrate how US...

The possible effect of the financialization of agricultural commodities on food security has become an evolving worry in recent years. This study seeks to empirically investigate this complicated problem and influence policy choices to ensure a more stable and secure food system by analyzing the...

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,...

In H2 2014, Russia introduced a food embargo against a number of countries as a retaliatory measure to economic, technological and financial sanctions. Limitation of imports of goods to Russia led to growth in prices on foreign goods and their domestic analogs, as well as changes in the consumer...

In the wake of recent food price spikes, plus growing demands for food in emerging Asia and for biofuels in Europe and the United States, governments are reexamining their strategies for dealing with both short-term and long-term food security concerns. This paper argues that long-run trends in...

High food prices can be an immediate threat to household food security, undermining population health, retarding human development, and lowering labor productivity for the economy in the long term. We employ a panel dataset covering 63 developing countries from 2001 to 2010 to make a...

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...

Undernourishment is still widespread in Tanzania, while obesity is becoming an issue of magnitude similar to undernutrition in the country. In this paper we examined the impact of an increase in maize prices on the nutritional status of Tanzania's adult population. We found that undernutrition...

The system of global agricultural and food trade is undergoing rapid processes of change, with important implications for economic development. In this paper we document and discuss these changes; including the rapid growth and structural change in agri-food trade, the increased consolidation in...