What's New

On June 6, the Nova Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine, located about 70 km upstream of Kherson, a port city on the Dnipro River, collapsed, sending an uncontrollable flow of water from its reservoir downstream. Futures markets reacting to the news sent wheat futures up almost 3 percent before falling back later that day. 

The FAO Food Price Index declined by 2.6 percent in May. Compared to May 2022 levels, the Index is 22.1 percent below its all-time high.

I was recently in Rome attending the April 13 launch of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s 2023 report The Status of Women in Agrifood Systems. I’ve been privileged to work with FAO colleagues as an external expert on two flagship reports on gender: The State of Food and Agriculture 2010-2011—Women in Agriculture: Closing the Gender Gap for Development and now this one, together with colleagues from the CGIAR GENDER Impact Platform.

Agricultural markets—particularly trade in cereals such as wheat and maize—have seen significant volatility over the past year as impacts of the Russia-Ukraine war, combined with tight global stocks, drove prices to record (nominal) highs. The rice market, by contrast, has been generally tranquil (Figure 1). Large global supplies and the lack of any direct trade connection to the Ukraine conflict left rice relatively immune to the price spikes seen with other commodities. But recently there have been signs of trouble.

Policies to boost biofuel production and use—crop subsidies, mandates, and other measures—came under intense scrutiny during the food price spikes of 2007/08, 2010/11, and 2012/13. As prices of maize, grains, oilseeds, and other feedstocks rose in those crises—more than doubling in some cases—critics pointed to their increasing use in biofuel production as a major factor behind high global food prices.