Publication: Agricultural Commodity Exchanges in Latin America and the Caribbean
Loading...
Published
2011-03-17
ISSN
Date
2014-04-22
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
A commodity exchange is a goods and financial market where different groups of participants trade commodities and commodity-linked contracts, with the underlying objective of transferring exposure to commodity price risks (UNCTAD). A commodity exchange that only trades goods is known as a physical or 'cash or forward' market, while the exchange that trades price derivatives is known as financial or 'futures and options' market (see Glossary for detailed definitions). Some agriculture commodity exchanges have both. Agricultural commodity exchanges date as far back as the early 18th century. Modern exchanges, notably the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) was created in 1848, recently merged with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), is one the oldest and most successful futures exchanges worldwide. Today several agricultural commodity exchanges exist throughout the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region. They facilitate trade and financial products in countries whose economies have a relatively large share of primary and secondary agricultural activities or either account for auctions on substantial food imports. This report looks at the current development of agricultural commodity exchanges in the LAC region and offers public policy recommendations that can foster the development of such exchange markets.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Arias, Diego; Ferreira Lamas, Alfredo; Kpaka, Musa. 2011. Agricultural Commodity Exchanges in Latin America and the Caribbean. LCSSD occasional paper series on food prices;. © http://hdl.handle.net/10986/18020 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication India - Taking Agriculture to the Market(Washington, DC, 2008-10)Policy makers in India recognize the importance o f well-functioning markets to agricultural growth, food security, and broad-based rural development. Markets facilitate the commercialization and diversification of farming, and they are essential for efficiently bringing food and agricultural products to domestic and international consumers. Well functioning domestic markets can reduce the cost of food and assure stability of supply, which as the recent global food crisis has highlighted, are key to assuring the food security of poor and non-poor households. They also open opportunities for greater value-addition and employment throughout the economy. The rapid growth of the Indian economy is bringing new forces for change in agricultural marketing and processing systems. Changes in consumer demand are fueled by rising incomes, increasing urbanization, a growing middle class demanding more diversified and higher-quality food, more working women demanding access to prepared or processed foods and more convenient shopping under one roof, and increased exposure to products through wider media penetration (domestic and international television, cable, and internet). These forces in turn drive changes in the structure of marketing and encourage agricultural diversification.Publication Distortions to Agricultural Incentives in Eastern Europe and Central Asia(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-03)In a recent survey of European economic growth since 1950, Crafts and Toniolo (2008) conclude that incentive structures are a crucial explanator of comparative growth rates of the economies of east and west Europe. Pre-empting that, a 2006 report on trade performance and policies in Eastern Europe and Central Asia included as one of its key recommendations the need to reduce the mean and variance of the tariff equivalents of trade barriers, and in particular to reduce unilaterally the policy regimes' anti-export bias, especially in countries exporting primary products (Broadman 2006). To progress such reform in Europe's transition economies efficiently and effectively, and to see how recent policies line up with those of the European Union (EU), requires better information on the extent of reform during the past two decades and of current policy influences on incentives within and between sectors. Immediately prior to their transition to market economies, policies in the region greatly distorted producer and consumer incentives, especially for agricultural products. Those distortions have been reduced substantially in several countries, but large variations remain across the region and distortions appear to be growing again in some countries. Now is thus an opportune time to examine how policies affecting agriculture are evolving in this region, including as part of the adjustment to EU accession for ten of the transition economies in the region.Publication Agriculture Trade and Price Policy in Pakistan(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-03)This policy paper focuses on the incentive framework for Pakistani agriculture, with emphasis on trade and price policies. It first presents a synthesis of major trends in the performance of the sector and analyzes Pakistan's extraordinarily complex, opaque and discretionary, and continually-changing trade regime. It presents a disaggregated analysis of the border measures for the selected products (trade and price interventions vary by product), and estimates the joint effect of trade and procurement policies on farm prices, captured by direct price comparison. It concludes by providing policy recommendations emphasizing on the revision of trade regime to eliminate quantitative restrictions and to modify tariffs in the direction of greater equality, a positive, moderate and uniform tariff on imports across the board as the only border measure for import competing products.Publication An Analytical Toolkit for Support to Contract Farming(Washington, DC, 2014-05)Over the past century or so, a wide assortment of pre-harvest agreements, joint ventures, deals, and pledges that can be termed contract farming have been brokered between farmers and buyers. During the 1980s and 1990s, contract farming was frequently criticized as a potentially exploitative arrangement, which favored the more powerful buyer and left the small-scale farmer and the environment vulnerable to abuse. More recently, there is renewed interest from policy makers and their development partners in contract farming as a means of leveraging the recent wave of large-scale investment in land and agriculture to include small-scale farmers and to link them to new market opportunities. The establishment of contract farming becomes a means to link small-scale farmers to markets, which may otherwise be inaccessible for reasons of distance, standards, processing, or any of the other disconnections and impediments that hold them back. However, there have been few attempts to evaluate donor-supported contract farming projects, either financially or economically, or to measure their inclusiveness and their impact in the community. This document aims to provide a task team leader with tools for a critical evaluation of projects promoting contract farming schemes before, during, and after the life span of the project. This toolkit has three objectives: provide guidance on what kinds of contract farming schemes work well, and in what circumstances (the best practice function); provide guidance on how to analyze inclusive contract farming schemes in order to identify those with a good chance of success and sustainability - the right horse to back (the diagnostic function); and provide a framework for applying socio-economic and financial analysis to operations that support such schemes (the cost-benefit function).Publication Agricultural Policies and Trade Paths in Turkey(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-10)In 1959, shortly after the European Economic Community was founded under the 1957 Treaty of Rome, Turkey applied for Associate Membership in the then six-member common market. By 1963, a path for integrating the economies of Turkey and the eventual European Union had been mapped. As with many trade agreements, agriculture posed difficult political hurdles, which were never fully cleared, even as trade barriers to other sectors were eventually removed and a Customs Union formed. This essay traces the influences the Turkey-European Union economic institutions have had on agricultural policies and the agriculture sector. An applied general equilibrium framework is used to provide estimates of what including agriculture under the Customs Union would mean for the sector and the economy. The paper also discusses the implications of fully aligning Turkey's agricultural policies with the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy, as would be required under full membership.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication Morocco Economic Update, Winter 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-04-03)Despite the drought causing a modest deceleration of overall GDP growth to 3.2 percent, the Moroccan economy has exhibited some encouraging trends in 2024. Non-agricultural growth has accelerated to an estimated 3.8 percent, driven by a revitalized industrial sector and a rebound in gross capital formation. Inflation has dropped below 1 percent, allowing Bank al-Maghrib to begin easing its monetary policy. While rural labor markets remain depressed, the economy has added close to 162,000 jobs in urban areas. Morocco’s external position remains strong overall, with a moderate current account deficit largely financed by growing foreign direct investment inflows, underpinned by solid investor confidence indicators. Despite significant spending pressures, the debt-to-GDP ratio is slowly declining.Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.Publication Europe and Central Asia Economic Update, Spring 2025: Accelerating Growth through Entrepreneurship, Technology Adoption, and Innovation(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-04-23)Business dynamism and economic growth in Europe and Central Asia have weakened since the late 2000s, with productivity growth driven largely by resource reallocation between firms and sectors rather than innovation. To move up the value chain, countries need to facilitate technology adoption, stronger domestic competition, and firm-level innovation to build a more dynamic private sector. Governments should move beyond broad support for small- and medium-sized enterprises and focus on enabling the most productive firms to expand and compete globally. Strengthening competition policies, reducing the presence of state-owned enterprises, and ensuring fair market access are crucial. Limited availability of long-term financing and risk capital hinders firm growth and innovation. Economic disruptions are a shock in the short term, but they provide an opportunity for implementing enterprise and structural reforms, all of which are essential for creating better-paying jobs and helping countries in the region to achieve high-income status.