CHAPTER 1 Introduction


B


eginning in 2003, international prices of a wide range of commodities surged upward in dramatic fashion, in many cases more than doubling in a few years and, in some cases, in a few months. Yet unlike other commodities, surging food prices are of special concern to the world’s poor. Many impoverished people depend on food production for their livelihoods, and all poor people spend large portions of their household budgets on food. Sharply rising prices offer few means of substitution and adjustment, espe- cially for the urban poor, so there are justifiable concerns that millions of people may be plunged into poverty by this crisis, and that those who are already poor may suffer further through increased hunger and malnutrition. Equally grave concerns have been felt with respect to the impacts that rising food and fuel prices may have had on macroeconomic stability and economic growth. And although the food and fuel crises have largely abated since mid- 2008 and have taken a back seat to the ongoing global financial crisis, food prices have remained high by historical standards and are predicted to stay high in the years to come.


Prior to the financial crisis, high food prices certainly received a great deal of attention from policymakers, the media, and the academic commu- nity. Active and often heated debate has arisen regarding what may have caused the food crisis, what impact it will have on the poor, and—on the basis of the debate—what needs to be done to resolve the crisis. Much of the nonacademic commentary on these issues was not based on evidence backed by research. Much of the academic research was also necessarily “quick and dirty,” in response to the pressing needs of policymakers. However, some of this research was insightful, resourceful, and impressively rigorous, given the sudden demand for such work. For the most part, this monograph constitutes a review of existing research on the food crisis, synthesizing the best results and pointing out the knowledge gaps we still have. In doing so we follow in the footsteps of several capable and rigorous assessments of the crisis. These include the work of Abbott, Hurt, and Tyner (2008, 2009) and Mitchell (2008) on the causes of the crisis, and Abbott (2009) on its consequences. We draw


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