Navigating Food Price Volatility: Climate Change, Geopolitics, and Emerging Market Vulnerabilities

Food prices

Food inflation has started to ease sharply across the developed world, but this is another potential source of risk over the coming decade.

Last year showed the cross-dependency of food prices on energy costs, and the ongoing risks associated with the Ukraine war and grain exports. But climate change is also creating increasingly volatile harvests, and the risk is that this results in more protectionism as producing nations seek to protect domestic supply. India’s recent bans on rice exports, and occasional threats of palm oil bans from Indonesia, highlight the risks here.

This is a bigger threat to emerging markets, where food can exceed 50% of inflation baskets.