Economic and social impacts of price volatility in the markets of agricultural products

Maurizio Lanfranchi, Mariyana Ivanova, Carlo Giannetto, Vihra Dimitrova, Francesco Rotondo

Abstract: The globalization of the economy has triggered a progressive process of innovation in the markets and communication, through direct and indirect effects, in the primary sector and particularly in the agribusiness sector. The demand and supply of agricultural and above all agri-food products is centred worldwide and no longer only at national or local level. Within these contexts, the individual agricultural companies are increasingly expelled and unable to compete and influence the performance of the markets themselves and are significantly exposed to the volatility of the prices of unrefined agricultural materials. The purpose of this article is to examine the impacts of the volatility of agricultural commodity prices from a macroeconomic and microeconomic perspective. This theme, due to its importance and urgency, has entered the debate on European and International Agricultural policy. The research, conducted through the analysis of the data provided and published by FAO (2018) revealed that the price fluctuation represents a gap for the entire economic system of a country and in recent years to consolidated changes of the past, on average around 20%, in the short term we have witnessed percentages that have reached almost 100%.

Keywords: agricultural products; agriculture; price; volatility

Date published: 2019-12-19