Mann Chats in the Stacks book talk: Food Price Policy in an Era of Market Instability: A Political Economy Analysis, 2015-09-24

The last decade has seen some dramatic food price fluctuations, especially for commodities such as rice, wheat, and maize, with huge impacts on poverty and malnutrition worldwide. Despite the importance of agriculture in many developing countries’ economies, few understand the processes that led to the policy responses during this time. Nor was the relative power and behavior of stakeholders well recognized. Understanding the reasons behind these past responses to food price fluctuations is important for shaping new strategies to confront future price volatility in the market.Food Price Policyin an Era of Market Instability, edited by Dr. Per Pinstrup-Andersen, aims to illuminate these factors by presenting political economy studies of food price policy in 14 developing countries as well as the United States and the European Union. In a Chats in the Stacks book talk given at Mann Library in September 2015, Dr. Pinstrup-Andersen summarizes some of thepublication’skey points to identify policies that governments should be shapingnow to avoid the disastrous consequences of future food price spikes for the world’s most vulnerable populations. Until his retirement in 2013, professor emeritus and World Food Prize laureate Per Pinstrup-Andersen served as the H. E. Babcock Professor of Food, Nutrition and Public Policy, the J. Thomas Clark Professor of Entrepreneurship, and Professor of Applied Economics at Cornell University. He is currently adjunct professor at Copenhagen University, chairman of the High Panel of Experts on Food Security (HLPE) and vice chairman of the World Economic Forum's Council on food Security.