Agricultural Markets and Food riots: The European Union and Asia Compared

Abstract

Despite the fact that the rises in global food and fuel prices have moderated in recent months, domestic prices remain much higher than in previous years. This phenomenon is the result of structural imbalance in the world food demand due to changes in diet pattern (because of rising income in emerging economies), the competition between biofuels and food crops for available land and the widespread reduction in yield growth in cereals. Higher prices increased the population at risk of food shortages and the impact on the households who were already poor is a concrete threat to basic survival. This Chapter will analyse and compare the recent policies adopted in the EU and in selected Asian countries to stabilise price fluctuations (such as price interventions and input subsidies) having in mind that, as a consequence of the recent crisis, the trend now is moving from food security towards food self-security