Search

The causes of food price spikes are complex, and their impact on different countries varies depending on production levels and the varied policies in place. Countries in Central Asia and the Caucasus (CAC) region have implemented a wide range of reforms that vary in form and speed. The existing scientific literature reports about the consequences of price spikes in CAC; however, to date, a comparison of impact between those countries has not been made in terms of the entire supply chain perspective. Therefore, this study investigates the impact of the price spikes on the entire wheat supply chain for the first time in CAC and discusses the role of policies. Another contribution of this study is an evidence-based analysis of the role of policy reformation in maintaining food security under price shocks. Our results indicate a very limited effect of price interventions and trade restrictions on dampening wheat prices in all countries. We find that only trade diversification policy had a positive effect on reducing the level of price spikes, and thus it might be a suitable policy measure for maintaining food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the outcome of the transformation of a centrally planned into a market economy over the past two decades in the case of agriculture in the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region. It focuses on the question of how transition progress in the region's agriculture can be evaluated and compared adequately. The article presents a set of arguments to question some of the conventional wisdom in the existing literature on what success and failure are in the transition of the ECA region's agriculture. In particular, it challenges the usefulness of counterfactuals that are commonly used in the existing literature to appraise transition progress such as pre-reform output levels, individualised farming structures and WTO-conforming agricultural market regulation. Against this background the widespread view that agricultural reform in the advanced CIS countries has, in general, been less successful than in the new EU member states is questioned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]