Food security and agricultural crises in a “financialized food regime”
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The paper explores the impact of finance's penetration into agriculture and the global food system. The authors analyse the causes of the recent global food crises, unveiling the key role played by financial speculation and explaining why this phenomenon is likely to affect food security much more than the problems related to the supply and demand dynamics taking place in the “real economy”. Financial markets, it is argued, are engendering pricing mechanisms and dynamics of wealth distribution that have consequences on agrarian structures, but also on our daily life. While creating new profit opportunities for speculators and the agribusiness, the penetration of finance into food systems increase uncertainty and imply new risks for local actors, to the point of compromising their capability to respond to exogenous shocks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. To make sense of these phenomena, they must be linked to the broader transformation of our global system and to the long-term trajectories of capitalist development. This operation is here made with the support of the analytical tools provided by some approaches inspired by the world-system analysis, bringing to light the roots of what can be defined as a “financialized food regime” and discussing some of its important ecological and socio-economic contradictions.
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Financialization has altered traditional supply-demand dynamics in food markets by introducing purely financial motivations and speculative strategies.
“This phenomenon, characterized by the growing involvement of hedge funds, passive investment funds, and other financial entities, has altered the traditional supply-demand dynamics by introducing purely financial motivations and speculative strategies into food markets”
From Food Financialization: Impact of Derivatives and Index Funds on Agri-Food Market Volatility (2024) · cites this paper as Fama and Conti 2022
The Lessons from the 2007–2008 Global Food Crisis section (page unavailable) says that non-commercial investors pursue speculative gains and that agricultural prices are increasingly shaped by financial-market expectations rather than production trends. This supports the claimed change in market dynamics, but the cited passages do not specifically identify hedge funds or passive investment funds as the actors involved. (LLM, conf=0.84)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe financialization of commodity markets has increased the influence and impact of financial actors in sectors such as food, fundamentally transforming price structures of essential goods.
“The financialization of commodity markets has increased the influence and impact of financial actors in sectors such as food, fundamentally transforming price structures of essential goods.”
From Food Financialization: Impact of Derivatives and Index Funds on Agri-Food Market Volatility (2024) · cites this paper as Fama and Conti 2022
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Food Financialization: Impact of Derivatives and Index Funds on Agri-Food Market Volatility
Venegas, M. D. R., Feregrino, J., Lay, N., & Espinosa-Cristia, J. F. (2024) · International Journal of Financial Studies · doi:10.3390/ijfs12040121 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
- Authors
- Fama, M., & Conti, M.
- Affiliations
- University of Bergamo (IT)
- University of Calabria (IT)
- Venue
- Cambio. Rivista sulle Trasformazioni Sociali
- Publisher
- Firenze University Press
- Published
- 2022-12-06
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 23
- ISSN
- 2239-1118 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4317608699
- Cited by
- 9
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 1
- FWCI
- 3.15
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Locations
- Cambio Rivista sulle Trasformazioni Sociali (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Aisberg (University of Bergamo) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Development › Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › World Systems and Global Transformations
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Finance › Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism
- Keywords
- food security, financialization of agriculture, financial speculation, food prices, wealth distribution, agrarian structure, agribusiness, COVID-19 pandemic, world-systems theory, capitalist development
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