What's New

IFPRI launched the Excessive Food Price Variability Early Warning System today. This new tool measures excessive food price variability and is the only mechanism currently available to identify time spans of increased price variability. It is updated daily and forewarns policymakers and humanitarian agencies of periods of time with excessive food price variability.

With food security remaining a critical issue for both developed and developing countries, the Meeting of G20 Agriculture Ministers met on June 22-23 to discuss food price volatility and improved sustainable agricultural policies. The Action Plan developed at the meeting highlights greater sustainable productivity, better market information, more open trade, comprehensive rural development and agricultural policies, and sustained investment in agricultural development.

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Risk characterizes everyday life for many of the world’s poorest households. These households are more likely to be located in environments where livelihoods are highly susceptible to weather and price variability and where health risks are pervasive. Reducing the risks faced by poor households, and enabling poor households to better deal with adverse events when they do occur, is essential to improving their welfare in the short run and their opportunities for income growth in the long run.

G20 leaders at their summit meeting in November 2010 requested FAO, IFAD, IMF, OECD, UNCTAD, WFP, the World Bank, and the WTO to work with key stakeholders “to develop options for G20 consideration on how to better mitigate and manage the risks associated with the price volatility of food and other agriculture commodities, without distorting market behaviour, ultimately to protect the most vulnerable.”

When the World Trade Organization (WTO) was created in 1995, its members committed themselves to a set of disciplines for domestic support, market access, and export competition for agriculture. The Agreement on Agriculture paved the way for the pursuit of progressive reductions in world agricultural market distortions.