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  • Publication | 2026
Food trade, macronutrient prices, trade tariffs and the price of food imports: Background paper for The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets 2024
Global Food and Nutrition Security

This paper provides an empirical analysis with the objectives to study the dynamics of nutrient prices and the impact of trade barriers on the prices of food imports. The study uses a novel dataset expressing bilateral trade flows in terms of their macro- and micronutrient content in 2000-2021. A hedonic pricing framework is used to estimate the implicit prices of nutrients embedded in internationally traded food products. Macronutrient prices are found to vary substantially according to the processing status and the origin of the food. Low- and middle-income countries appear to benefit from international trade by exchanging high-priced for low-priced macronutrients (“nutritional arbitrage”). Also, the content of micronutrients appears to significantly contribute to food prices. While the net direct effect of trade barriers on import volumes is unambiguously negative, the effect of trade barriers on the price of food imported from international markets depends on several contextual factors and is not easily predictable.