I'm wondering if there's something preventing the government of vulnerable countries from buying futures themselves to shield their own people from violent price fluctuations like these, i.e. hedge against price increase for food commodities that need to be imported. Trading commodity futures may be inaccessible to ordinary people, but I don't see why the government of a country, even a developing one, cannot do it, other than because of some idiosyncratic rules of the game.
The governments don't need to do it. This is exactly why futures contracts exist. So that bakers who know they need wheat in six months can know today what the wheat will cost them and can price the bread with that assurance.
But maybe your point is that by doing this they would avoid the transient price spike due to the indexes rolling over in the near months. Which might make sense, but that phenomenon was noticed by traders anyway and you would expect it to be smoothed out because of that.
Sure, bakers who know they need wheat in six months can buy some futures for six months from now. Then, what is the problem that TFA is talking about? I thought it was about poor countries being impacted by the price spike resulting from the long speculation. If the people in these countries had bought the futures they needed well in advance, why were they getting impacted? I inferred that the problem was because people there were not sophisticated enough to buy the necessary futures.
That would make the problem worse though, by adding more demand for futures. They should sell futures to take advantage of raised prices now for future production, taking profits and driving prices down...
If you need food in 100 days, you can pay for the futures for that day, or in 100 days the actual spot price, whatever it turns out to be in 100 days. You generate demand for the futures or the actual commodity, not both. By acting early, well in advance, you could get a better price if the price is going to go up. Even if you have zero idea where the price is heading, by buying futures continually well in advance, you could smoothen out the volatility for yourself.
That is clearer. But right now that would increase demand for futures even more, over the current situation, and if the futures prices are higher purely for speculative reasons, you would reduce volatility but pay a lot for that.
Whereas if you sell future production into the market now, you realise gains from historically high prices, and hopefully make a profit.
Well, I'm not necessarily suggesting it for right now, but as a general strategy.
But, if the governments were to short the futures right now, who's to say the price will not increase? It's a risk. If they can be sure, other entities can also be sure and make money doing the same.
