According to the UK’s Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB), grain prices are on the way up in the world. Lack of rain has reduced yields in Argentina. Last month the country temporarily banned maize exports as a result, leading to to a rapid rise in global maize prices. The ban was changed to a…   Read more

In January 1950 R.S. Porter published an article entitled ‘Buffer stocks and economic stability’ in the distinguished journal Oxford Economic Papers. Beginning with the remark that ‘the Chinese are said to have operated an “ever normal granary” system many hundreds of years before the birth of Christ,’ he moves on to the biblical story of…   Read more

The book begins by identifying the problem, namely the fact that world prices of agricultural commodities are unstable. It is true that international trade helps to moderate this instability, but it cannot do so if there is a world-wide shortage or surplus. There is therefore a question of what other measures might be adopted. The…   Read more

The structure of the European Union is such that the European Commission has the ‘right of initiative’ in most policy areas, meaning that while it is for the other two most important institutions (the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament) to pass laws, it is for the Commission to propose them. This gives it…   Read more

This blog has been quiet for three years while a great deal of research has been done. But we are now happy to report that John McClintock, Director of ACTION for Food Reserves, has published his book The Fight against Food Shortages and Surpluses: Perspectives of a Practitioner (Wallingford: CAB International, 2020). You can go…   Read more