Book Description

Since the financial and food price crises of 2007, market instability has been a topic of major concern to agricultural economists and policy professionals. This volume provides an overview of the key issues surrounding food prices volatility, focusing primarily on drivers, long-term implications of volatility and its impacts on food chains and consumers. The book explores which factors and drivers are volatility-increasing and which others are price level-increasing, and whether these two distinctive effects can be identified and measured. It considers the extent to which increasing instability affects agents in the value chain, as well as the actual impacts on the most vulnerable households in the EU and in selected developing countries. It also analyses which policies are more effective to avert and mitigate the effects of instability. Developed from the work of the European-based ULYSSES project, the book synthesises the most recent literature on the topic and presents the views of practitioners, businesses, NGOs and farmers' organizations. It draws policy responses and recommendations for policy makers at both European and on international levels.