Road networks and food price volatility

Abstract

Understanding and mitigating the spatial and temporal volatility of agricultural commodity prices remains a critical yet challenging task. Fluctuations in food and agricultural commodity prices exacerbate food insecurity and impact farmers worldwide. This research examines the impact of road network measures on the volatility of agricultural commodity prices. We utilized monthly price data from the FAO Food Price Monitoring and Analysis Tool, which encompasses 236 markets across 60 countries, for eight food groups comprising 36 commodity categories, from 2015 to 2023. For each market, we constructed road network measures, including road density, closeness centrality, and betweenness centrality, using data from the Global Roads Inventory Project and a 2015 population density raster, both gridded at 2.5 arcminutes. The regression results show that markets located near denser, better-connected road networks tend to exhibit lower food price volatility. However, the local advantages of road networks on price stability vary significantly depending on the food group and specific network measures: bread and oil markets tend to be destabilized by centralization, while beans and vegetables are stabilized. No consistent or statistically significant effects are observed for grains, roots, or animal food groups across all network centrality measures. Findings highlight the complex and heterogeneous relationship between transportation infrastructure and food price volatility, as well as the need for regionally and commodity specific infrastructure policies to mitigate food price volatility.