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The Korea Rural Economic Institute hosted an international symposium titled 'World Grain Market Outlook: Implications of Grain Price Fluctuation and Food Policy' on Oct. 19 at Plaza Hotel in Seoul.
Ralph Gifford, assistant deputy administrator of Foreign Agricultural Service, USDA, participated in the symposium, in which he forecast that the stocks-to-use (S/U) ratio of world grains in 2012-13 will be about 18.5%, the tightest S/U ratio since the surge of world grain prices in 2008. Gifford predicted that in 2012-13 the S/U ratio of wheat in major wheat-exporting countries of the world will be at the lowest level in the recent five years.
Gary R. Blumenthal, CEO of World Perspectives, Inc., also took part in the symposium and said that the United States is currently considering to adopt a "counter-cyclical" biofuel policy to cope with price fluctuations. Blumenthal said that a counter-cyclical policy takes the volatility out of agriculture and pushes it into the energy sector, which is much larger and can withstand the volatility much easier.
Ross Korves, former chief economist of American Farm Bureau Federation, said that in regard to food security, policy makers should induce active use of future and forward contracts by making the best use of the free market at home and abroad.
Sung Myung-Hwan, director of grain department at KREI, and Han Suk-Ho, leader of grain monitoring team, suggested the following measures to enhance food security: domestically, increase production of animal feed crops on idle farmland, increase food self-sufficiency rate through direct payment for farmers, and secure stable grain supply by participating in grain distribution business; regionally, make use of the East Asia emergency rice reserve, build a cooperative system for overseas agricultural development, and secure a grain production base; and globally, comply with the WTO regulations.
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