The Politics of the Fight against Food Price Volatility – Where do we stand and where are we heading?

The paper reviews and evaluates the global political discussions of G-8 and G-20 Member countries on food security and food price volatility since the L’Aquila Initiative in 2009. It shows that some progress was achieved with respect to better coordination of agricultural policies and stricter regulation of financial markets, especially at the 2011 Cannes Summit Meeting of the G-20. However, no agreement was reached in areas crucial for food security such as biofuel mandates or agricultural trade policies. A discretionary approach towards stabilizing food prices may, however, rather exacerbate than mitigate volatility. Regarding financial markets the respective initiatives of the US and the EU prove the willingness of the executive to control excessive speculation, but the legislative procedure has not been completed, and interest groups are working to water down the proposed provisions. In the preparations for the upcoming G-8 and G-20 Meetings no new impulses for food security are discernable. The priority lists are topped by macro-economic issues. Under these circumstances developing countries will have no choice but to forge new alliances to bring the food security issue back to the global agenda.