FIGURE 5 Major exporters’ shares of global maize, wheat, and rice exports, 2008
84% MAIZE
United States - 53.0% Argentina - 15.1% Brazil - 6.3% France - 6.0% India - 3.5%
63% WHEAT
United States - 22.9% France - 12.4% Canada - 12.0% Russian Federation - 8.9% Argentina - 6.7%
95% RICE
(paddy)
United States - 90.4% Paraguay - 1.4% France - 1.2% China - 1.1% Brazil - 0.9%
85% RICE
(milled)
Thailand - 36.4% Vietnam - 19.9% Pakistan - 10.9% India - 10.4% United States - 7.2%
Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAOSTAT database,
http://faostat.fao.org/. Note: Paddy rice is mostly exported by the United States, and milled rice is exported by other countries.
to cereals use, were similarly very low when wheat prices spiked in the 1970s, 1995–96, 2007–08, and 2010–11. Tis indicates that for the market to func- tion effectively, the food system must hold a mini- mum level of grain stocks to be able to respond to unexpected shocks (such as bad weather) and
FIGURE 6 Effects of trade policy reactions for selected countries on world wheat prices
■ Effects of interactions between import and export policies ■ Decrease in import duties (to keep domestic prices low) ■ Increase in export taxes (to keep domestic prices low) ■ Initial demand increase or supply decrease
25 20 15 10 5 0
Source: A. Bouet and D. Laborde, Economics of Export Taxation in a Context of Food Crisis: A Theoretical and CGE Approach Contribution, IFPRI Discussion Paper 994 (Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute, 2010).
Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Food Outlook (Rome, various years). Note: World excluding China is shown because China is an outlier in terms of reserves, and there are several questions about the quality of its reports.
FOOD PRICES 19
Effect of the initial change in demand or supply
Effect of policy reactions
allow for the transport, marketing, and processing of grains.9 Given the current low levels, sometimes only a small dip in grain stocks leads to problems. In 2007–08 grain stocks were only about 60 mil- lion tons less than in 2004–05, representing a decline of just 2.7 percent of global production. But when prices rose sharply in 2007–08, this differ- ence in grain stocks was enough to contribute to serious price increases, especially for commodi- ties whose production is concentrated in just a few countries, such as rice.10
FIGURE 7 Ratio of cereals stocks to use, 1996/97–2011/12
10 15 20 25 30 35
0 5
World World excluding China
Increase in world wheat prices (percent)
use ratio, 1996–2011 Cereals stocks to
1996/97 1997/98 1998/99 1999/00 2000/01 2001/02 2002/03 2003/04 2004/05 2005/06 2006/07 2007/08 2008/09 2009/10 2010/11 2011/12
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