Work on The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets 2022 (SOCO 2022) began in January 2021. The research and writing team, assembled at that time, was composed of six staff members of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) who were responsible for the data analysis, research and writing of the report.
FAO conducted an econometric modelling exercise to analyse the statistical relationship between bilateral trade flows, relative prices and geographic barriers, and to identify the key drivers of trade such as absolute advantage, comparative advantage and trade costs. In addition, a group of external experts were engaged to support the writing team in developing this edition of the report. The external experts performed two additional analytical exercises: a trade network analysis, and a computable general equilibrium model simulation to estimate the effects of different liberalization and trade cost reduction scenarios. An external expert also produced a critical review of the impacts of trade on the environment.
In April 2022, the manuscript was sent to external reviewers, who provided substantive comments and advice on the analysis of the report. The report was also reviewed by multiple experts across FAO, who provided valuable comments.
The report was reviewed and discussed by the management team of the FAO Economic and Social Development Stream in April 2022. The content and findings of SOCO 2022 will be presented to the Committee on Commodity Problems (CCP) at its meeting in July 2022.
