ABSTRACT
Food prices are a primary indicator of the ability of a community to access food. As one of the four elements for food security, food access has become increasingly important as world markets are more integrated and shocks affect local markets where the food insecure live. This chapter describes the global commodity markets and the structure of local and regional food markets in the most food insecure nations. The drivers of local food prices are explored to better understand the importance of climate variability and international commodity prices in determining local food prices. The chapter provides analysis of the different ways food prices affect rural and urban communities using conceptual frameworks that analyze how food prices are changing within the global food system. The chapter ends with a discussion of prices in local markets and how many current price indices fail to capture the impact of price changes for the food insecure because they focus too much on prices of imported products in cities far away from where these populations reside.
