We examine empirically the predictability of conditions associated with
a higher probability of a price spike in agricultural commodity markets.
We find that the forward spread is the most significant indicator of
probable price jumps in maize, wheat and soybeans futures markets, a
result which is in line with the `Theory of Storage'. We additionally
show that some option-implied variables add significant predictive power
when added to the more standard information variable set. Overall, the
estimated probabilities of large price increases from our probit models
exhibit significant correlations with historical sudden market upheavals
in agricultural markets
