With the current extreme price increases for wheat, we are observing potentially the early stages of another global food-price crisis. Even if this does not evolve into something as dramatic as the crisis of 2007-08, when prices of major agricultural commodities from corn to rice shot up to record levels, triggering food riots from Bangladesh to Haiti, it is a stark indication of the perilous state of the world food market. Some lessons have been learned from 2008, but too little has been done to prevent future crises. In particular the malfunctioning of world grain markets has not been addressed – a failure now haunting world markets. The fixing of international food prices today is the result of three forces: expectations on future supply and demand; the growing role of speculators in commodity markets, and the importance of food prices for political stability in countries such as Egypt. Today, low-income countries and the poor are actually more vulnerable than before the last food crisis.
The rapid recent increase in the international wheat price underlines the stakes. Last week, September wheat futures showed the steepest increase since 2008. Current futures prices are above $7 a bushel for the first time since September 2008. The reduced expectations for harvests in Russia, Ukraine and a few areas in western Europe are the trigger. Russia's wheat export ban accelerates the risk of a price spike and again undermines the trust in food trade. Even a small decline in the world's expected wheat harvest by about 3 to 4 percent induces large price swings.
So what lessons were taught by the 2008 crisis? It was in part the consequence of long-term neglect of investment in agriculture in developing countries and poorly thought-out agriculture subsidising policies in industrialised countries. It was then set off by adverse weather and exacerbated by inappropriate policies, such as export bans, hoarding by importing nations and lack of appropriate regulation of trade in commodities.