The effects of food market volatility on livelihoods

The global food price spike which peaked in mid 2008 put the issue of staple food price volatility and its impacts on impoverished people’s ability to access reliably adequate food in the spotlight—particularly when the vast majority of poor people, including subsistence farmers, are net buyers of food.

How do events like this impact on the livelihoods of vulnerable groups in developing countries? What actions should or should not be taken by governments in developed and developing nations in response?

Our research looks at short, medium, and long-term drivers of the crisis, as well as how it was transmitted from world markets to poor households, at the coping strategies adopted by individuals, the policy responses of governments, and the mitigating actions taken by civil society and humanitarian groups.  We collaborate strongly with the Social Protection Programme and also engage more broadly with civil society and other organisations working in the general area of food price volatility and its impacts on food security.