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Political instabilities and violent political conflict have in recent years risen substantially throughout the world. Especially in the Middle East and North Africa they have grown to decisive factors permanently challenging the livelihoods of millions. We assess whether and to what extent varying intensities of conflict impact economic activity in Palestine which has been subject to substantial violent political conflict for decades. In particular, we analyse the relationship between various intensity levels of political instability measured by conflict-caused fatalities and uncertainty of weekly food prices in the West Bank between 2004 and 2011 using a GARCH model. We consider four food commodities covering vegetables, fruits and animal products. Banana and milk prices are found not to show clustered volatility while onion and pear prices do. The impact of varying conflict intensities on weekly average prices appears to be modest. This might suggest that effects happen on a temporally and geographically more disaggregated scale. ; peerReviewed

Food inflation in India for the past few years has been at a historic high. However, the evidence suggests that higher food prices, while adversely affecting those who spend most of their income on food, have not necessarily been helpful to smallholder farmers. The volatility of food prices at the wholesale and retail levels has also remained high, creating uncertainties for consumers and producers. This article reviews recent trends in food prices in India, examines the sources of food price increases and volatility, separates the relative roles of demand–supply imbalances, cost-push factors and speculation and draws out some of the implications of those factors.

This article analyzes international commodity price movements, assesses food policies in response to price fluctuations, and explores the food security implications of price volatility on low‐income groups. It focuses specifically on measurements, causes, and consequences of recent food price trends, variability around those trends, and price spikes. Combining these three components of price dynamics shows that the variation in real prices post‐2000 was substantially greater than that in the 1980s and 1990s, and was approximately equal to the extreme volatility in commodity prices that was experienced in the 1970s. Macro policy, exchange rates, and petroleum prices were important determinants of price variability over 2005–2010, highlighting the new linkages between the agriculture‐energy and agriculture‐finance markets that affect the world food economy today. These linkages contributed in large part to misguided expectations and uncertainty that drove prices to their peak in 2008. The article also argues that there is a long‐lasting effect of price spikes on food policy around the world, often resulting in self‐sufficiency policies that create even more volatility in international markets. The efforts by governments to stabilize prices frequently contribute to even greater food insecurity among poor households, most of which are in rural areas and survive on the margin of net consumption and net production. Events of 2008—and more recently in 2010—underscore the impact of price variability for food security and the need for refocused policy approaches to prevent and mitigate price spikes.

PurposeThis study focuses on forecasting the price of the most important export crops of vegetables and fruits in Egypt from 2016 to 2030.Design/methodology/approachThe study applied generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) model and autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model.FindingsThe results show that ARIMA (1,1,1), ARIMA (2.1,2), ARIMA (1,1,0), ARIMA (1,1,2), ARIMA (0,1,0) and ARIMA (1,1,1) are the most appropriate fitted models to evaluate the volatility of price of green beans, tomatoes, onions, oranges, grapes and strawberries, respectively. The results also revealed the presence of ARCH effect only in the case of Potatoes, hence it is suggested that the GARCH approach be used instead. The GARCH (1,1) is found to be a better model in forecasting price of potatoes.Originality/valueThe study of food price volatility in developing countries is essential, since a significant share of household budgets is spent on food in these economies, so forecasting agricultural prices is a substantial requirement for drawing up many economic plans in the fields of agricultural production, consumption, marketing and trade.

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 re-examining their strategies for dealing with both short-term and long-term food security concerns. This paper argues that long-run trends in real agricultural prices have policy implications for food security that are at least as important as those related to short-lived spikes around trend prices. The paper therefore summarizes recent projections of markets to 2030 under various scenarios, and then reviews evidence on how trade policy restrictions typically are altered to insulate domestic markets from short-run fluctuations in international prices around their long-run trends. That provides a firm empirical basis for re-examining the effectiveness and efficiency of various policy options for ensuring food security in Asia and elsewhere. Those options include boosting agricultural productivity growth rates to deal with long-run concerns, and using more-appropriate domestic policy measures rather than trade policies to cope with price volatility. ; Anderson, Nelgen and Strutt acknowledge funding support from the Asian Development Bank, the Australian Research Council, the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, and the World Bank.

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 re-examining their strategies for dealing with both short-term and long-term food security concerns. This paper argues that long-run trends in real agricultural prices have policy implications for food security that are at least as important as those related to short-lived spikes around trend prices. The paper therefore summarizes recent projections of markets to 2030 under various scenarios, and then reviews evidence on how trade policy restrictions typically are altered to insulate domestic markets from short-run fluctuations in international prices around their long-run trends. That provides a firm empirical basis for re-examining the effectiveness and efficiency of various policy options for ensuring food security in Asia and elsewhere. Those options include boosting agricultural productivity growth rates to deal with long-run concerns, and using more-appropriate domestic policy measures rather than trade policies to cope with price volatility. ; Anderson, Nelgen and Strutt acknowledge funding support from the Asian Development Bank, the Australian Research Council, the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, and the World Bank.

Changes in global food prices have affected EU producers and consumers and have triggered policy reactions through the EU's political process. In particular, the EU and member states responded by social policies to protect their consumers, attempts to regulate 'speculation' on agricultural commodities, revisions of sustainability requirements for biofuels, international development and food aid, and changes in the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). With the exception of biofuel regulations, policy changes have been relatively limited and the effects on global food markets minor. The reasons are that the impact of global price volatility on EU consumers has been limited and the link between the CAP and the world market is much smaller than it was twenty years ago.

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of contributors -- Preface -- Acronyms and abbreviations -- 1 Scope and objectives -- Part 1 Literature reviews and new findings -- 2 Volatility in the after-crisis period: A literature review of recent empirical research -- 3 Has agricultural price volatility increased since 2007? -- 4 Medium-term drivers of food markets' variability and uncertainty -- 5 Transparency of food pricing in the European Union -- 6 A review of the effects of contextual factors on price volatility transmission in food supply chains -- 7 Impacts of increased food prices and volatility on households' welfare -- Part 2 The views of some stakeholders -- 8 Are derivatives introducing distortions in agricultural markets? -- 9 The view of farmers: German pig producers -- 10 Mitigating the effects of agricultural price volatility: A European cereal grower's point of view -- 11 Milk and dairy products' price volatility: EU dairy cooperatives attitude towards volatility -- 12 Coping with food price volatility: The contribution of local food reserves -- Part 3 Policy discussion and conclusions -- 13 Assessment of national policies in developing countries to combat and mitigate the effects of agricultural markets' excessive price volatility -- 14 Price volatility perceptions, management strategies, and policy options in EU food supply chains -- 15 Book summary and ULYSSES project's conclusions -- Index.

This paper deals with the dynamic response of exchange rates, inflation and agricultural foreign trade in Bulgaria, Poland and Romania to global food prices. We employ time-varying VARs with stochastic volatility to estimate the behaviour of these macroeconomic variables over the 2001M1–2015M12 period. The original contribution of this paper is that it captures the time variation and nonlinearities of the relationship between variables taking into account food price volatility and its macroeconomic implications. The main findings of the paper are: (i) high global food prices were transmitted to domestic economies causing pressure on inflation in the long run; (ii) in the short run the impact of a positive shock in international food price increases domestic inflation, depreci-ates the currency and reduces the agricultural trade; (iii) the vulnerabilities to global food prices are more pregnant for Romania and Bulgaria; (iv) the difference in the transmission of world prices is related to the different status of the countries as regards food and agricultural trade. The findings of the research would be significant for the governments to promote policies to help farmers respond to the rising of food prices by growing more and responding to export opportunities that may arise.