Explore the vast range of titles available.

US retail food price increases in recent years may seem large in nominal terms, but after adjusting for inflation have been quite modest even after the change in US biofuel policies in 2006. In contrast, increases in the real prices of corn, soybeans, wheat and rice received by US farmers have been more substantial and can be linked in part to increases in the real price of oil. That link, however, appears largely driven by common macroeconomic determinants of the prices of oil and of agricultural commodities rather than the pass-through from higher oil prices. We show that there is no evidence that corn ethanol mandates have created a tight link between oil and agricultural markets. Moreover, increases in agricultural commodity prices have contributed little to US retail food price increases, because of the small cost share of agricultural products in food prices. In short, there is no evidence that oil price shocks have been associated with more than a negligible increase in US retail food prices in recent years. Nor is there evidence for the prevailing wisdom that oil-price driven increases in the cost of food processing, packaging, transportation and distribution have been responsible for higher retail food prices. Similar results hold for other industrialized countries. There is reason, however, to expect food commodity prices to be more tightly linked to retail food prices in developing countries.

Food environments may be contributing to the rapid increase in obesity occurring in most Latin American (LA) countries. The present study reviews literature from LA that (i) describes the food environment and policies targeting the food environment (FEP); and (ii) analytic studies that investigate associations between the FEP and dietary behaviours, overweight/obesity and obesity related chronic diseases. We focus on six dimensions of the FEP: food retail, provision, labelling, marketing, price and composition. Systematic literature review. Three databases (Web of Science, SciELO, LILACS) were searched, from 1 January 1999 up to July 2017. Two authors independently selected the studies. A narrative synthesis was used to summarize, integrate and interpret findings. Studies conducted in LA countries. The search yielded 2695 articles of which eighty-four met inclusion criteria. Most studies were descriptive and came from Brazil (61 %), followed by Mexico (18 %) and Guatemala (6 %). Studies were focused primarily on retail/provision (n 27), marketing (n 16) and labelling (n 15). Consistent associations between availability of fruit and vegetable markets and higher consumption of fruits and vegetables were found in cross-sectional studies. Health claims in food packaging were prevalent and mostly misleading. There was widespread use of marketing strategies for unhealthy foods aimed at children. Food prices were lower for processed relative to fresh foods. Some studies documented high sodium in industrially processed foods. Gaps in knowledge remain regarding policy evaluations, longitudinal food retail studies, impacts of food price on diet and effects of digital marketing on diet/health.

Can food prices cause social unrest? Throughout history, riots have frequently broken out, ostensibly as a consequence of high food prices. Using monthly data at the international level, this article studies the impact of food prices – food price levels as well as food price volatility – on social unrest. Because food prices and social unrest are jointly determined, data on natural disasters are used to identify the causal relationship flowing from food price levels to social unrest. Results indicate that for the period 1990–2011, food price increases have led to increases in social unrest, whereas food price volatility has not been associated with increases in social unrest. These results are robust to alternative definitions of social unrest, to using real or nominal prices, to using commodity-specific price indices instead of aggregated price indices, to alternative definitions of the instrumental variable, to alternative definitions of volatility, and to controlling for non-food-related social unrest.

The present paper analyses the relations between food and oil prices for Malaysia using a nonlinear autoregressive distributed lags (NARDL) model. The bounds test of the NARDL specification suggests the presence of cointegration among the variables, which include the food price, oil price and real GDP. The estimated NARDL model affirms the presence of asymmetries in the food price behavior. Namely, in the long run, we find a significant relation between oil price increases and food price. Meanwhile, the long run relation between oil price reduction and the food price is absent. Furthermore, in the short run, only changes in the positive oil price exert significant influences on the food price inflation. With the absence of significant influence of oil price reduction on the food price both in the long run and in the short run, the role of market power in shaping the behavior of Malaysia's food price is likely to be significant.

It is widely believed that oil prices impact food prices in developing countries. Yet rigorous evidence on this relationship is scarce. Using maize and petrol price data from east Africa, we show that global oil prices do affect food prices but primarily through transport costs, rather than through biofuel or production cost channels. We find that global oil prices transmit much more rapidly to the pump and then to local maize prices than do global maize prices, suggesting that the immediate effects of correlated commodity price shocks on local food prices are driven more by transport costs than by the prices of the grains themselves. Furthermore, we present suggestive evidence that, for markets furthest inland, changes in world oil prices have larger effects on local maize prices than do changes in world maize prices.

While both academics and politicians have long acknowledged the connection between food price shocks and so-called 'food riots', this article asks whether rising domestic consumer food prices are a contributing cause of sociopolitical unrest, more broadly defined, in urban areas of Africa. In order to unravel the complex and circular relationship between rising food prices and unrest, an instrumental approach with country fixed effects is used to isolate causality at the country-month unit of analysis for the period 1990 through 2012. Two instrumental variables, changes in international grain commodity prices and local rainfall scarcity, are evaluated and used individually and jointly as instruments for changes in domestic food prices. The main finding is that a sudden increase in domestic food prices in a given month significantly increases the probability of urban unrest, especially spontaneous events and riots, in that month. Undeniably, more fundamental economic and political grievances are also drivers of such events and are likely to determine how the unrest ultimately manifests, even when triggered by rising food prices. Although more research is necessary to determine why people choose particular protest methods and targets, the findings of this research provide evidence that sociopolitical unrest of different types is driven, or at least triggered, by a consumer response to economic pressure from increasing food prices regardless of the cause of the increase.

Purpose – Organic food represents the fastest growing sector in the food market, with outstanding performance in both production and sales. However, existing studies on organic food have lacked a strong theoretical foundation. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships among purchase intention and the properties, certification mechanisms, retail channels, and prices of organic food from multiple theoretical perspectives. Design/methodology/approach – Using a rigorous sampling design, 507 valid questionnaires collected from consumers at four well-known organic food markets, and the hypotheses were tested based on a linear structural equation model. Findings – The results of the structural equation model analysis showed the following: consumer attitudes toward organic food labeling/certification institutions had a positive impact on the trust in food labeling; channel dependence positively influenced the relational embeddedness in a channel; the effect of the nutritional value of organic food on environmental protection also had a positive impact on attitudes toward organic foods; attitudes toward trust in the organic label, relational embeddedness in a channel, and attitudes toward organic foods had a positive impact on consumer purchase intentions; and in relation to low-price scenarios, consumers required more confidence to purchase higher-priced goods, meaning that the relational embeddedness in a channel exerted more influence on purchase intentions. By contrast, compared to the high-price scenarios, consumers tended to choose lower priced goods based on personal preferences, e.g., making the purchase decision based on trust in the organic label and attitudes toward organic food. Originality/value – The contributions of this study include the following: the relationships among the variables were investigated comprehensively from multiple theoretical perspectives; and the results can help the government and the organic food industry to understand their respective responsibilities in promoting organic food to reduce the waste of resources, in which the government can provide basic information on organic food, e.g., a certification mechanism and related definitions, while the organic food industry provides specific knowledge about organic foods, e.g., product features.

This paper aims to reveal the causal relationship between energy prices and food prices and whether this relationship is similar in the food sub-groups forming the food price index used. As food prices more than doubled during the 2008 economic crisis, this relationship has received considerable attention from researchers. Many researches have been conducted to determine the causes and consequences of the 2008 food price crisis. Researches are mainly focused on crude oil and bio-energy in terms of “energy”. This research is not only differentiated by the data used but also by the methodology employed. The study attempts to add new findings to the empirical food price literature by utilizing relatively newly developed methods, namely Toda–Yamamoto causality, Fourier Toda–Yamamoto causality, and spectral BC causality tests. The spectral BC causality test clearly reveals that there is bidirectional causality between the energy price index and food price indexes (grains, other food, and oils) at different frequencies.

This paper summarizes the main findings of alternative lines of research on the relationship between the food and fuel markets and identifies gaps and quandaries that warrant further research. This is not meant to be a complete survey, and it emphasizes several of our studies within the broader literature. The paper distinguishes between two bodies of literature: one on the relationship between food and fuel prices and another on the impact of the introduction of biofuel on commodity food prices. While biofuel prices do not seem to affect food-commodity prices, we explain why the introduction of biofuel does. Moreover, biofuels have not been the most dominant contributor to the recent food-price inflation and different biofuels have different impacts. Reprinted by permission of the American Agricultural Economics Association

There is increased recognition of a common suite of global challenges that hamper food system sustainability at the community scale. Food price volatility, shortages of basic commodities, increased global rates of obesity and non-communicable food-related diseases, and land grabbing are among the impediments to socially just, economically robust, ecologically regenerative and politically inclusive food systems. While international political initiatives taken in response to these challenges (e.g. Via Campesina) and the groundswell of local alternatives emerging in response to challenges are well documented, more attention is needed to the analysis of similarities between community approaches to global pressures. While we are not suggesting the application of a template set of good practices, the research reported in this paper point to the benefits of both sharing good practices and enabling communities to adopt good practices that are suited to their place-based capacities. The work also suggests that sharing community-derived good practices can support and reinforce global networks of sustainable community food systems, foster knowledge co-creation and ultimately cement collective action to global pressures. In turn these networks could enhance the sustainability and resilience of community food systems and facilitate wide scale food system transformation.