Agriculture

A maize shortage has led to an unprecedented price hike in Kenya; government has declared the food insecurity a national disaster. Many Kenyans attribute food price inflation to mismanagement and corruption. But to what extent does it result from actual scarcity? Do food crop producers - many of them small farmers - profit from high food prices?

Higher and more stable agricultural commodity prices are a necessary condition for the agriculture sector to become an effective force in the socioeconomic growth of the less and least developed countries. Trade liberalisation cannot deliver this. What are the alternatives?

The current global agrifood system is slowly going from a "bottleneck situation" to one of "hourglass", wherein a few dominant agrifood retailers control both the supply side / numerous producers and demand side / numerous consumers.