Price volatility perceptions, management strategies, and policy options in EU food supply chains

In the last decade, agricultural prices have been increasingly volatile at a global level (FAO et al., 2011). In the European Union, the rise of volatility of international agricultural commodity prices has intensified the debate about the role of agricultural policies in mitigating risks. This debate among others resulted from the several reforms of the common agricultural policy (CAP) since the early 1990s that increased the exposure of EU domestic prices to international price signals (Tangermann, 2011). The reforms included the reduction of import barriers, export subsidies, production quotas, and intervention buying (European Commission, 2009; Bardají et al., 2011; Tangermann, 2011).