Sean Field

The treatment of recent global food price volatility in the neoclassical academic literature is problematic in its limited conceptual and empirical scope. This study presents new empirical data and analysis linking financial speculation by index swap dealers (‘index funds’) with US and global food price volatility. Marxian circuits of capital are used to illustrate the connection between index funds and food consumers. The findings show that financial speculation by index swap dealers and hedge funds significantly contributed to the price volatility of food commodities between June 2006 and December 2014. The key conceptual contribution is that it articulates geographical economic interpretation of food price volatility and financial speculation in a literature awash with neoclassical economic analyses.

There are few studies that consider the localization/relocalization of food systems in low-income countries and how the social, cultural and economic dynamics of these agri-food systems compare to trends observed in high-income countries. We suggest that food systems in Ghana are localized by necessity when compared to relocalized food systems observed in high-income countries that have emerged in response to global agri-food industrialization. Food systems in Ghana are characterized by policies aimed at enhancing food security and poverty alleviation, as well as market imperfections that limit farmers’ access to non-local markets.