Miller Magazine Issue 146 February 2022

76 ARTICLE MILLER / FEBRUARY 2022 Over the past three decades, the value of glob- al agri-food trade has more than doubled in real terms. It increased steadily until 2008, when its growth was interrupted by the recession that fol- lowed the financial crisis of 2008, then regained momentum between 2010 and 2013. From 2014, the value of agri-food trade declined again, main- ly due to falling commodity prices and exchange rate fluctuations, before rebounding between 2016 and 2019. Overall, global agri-food trade grew at an annual average rate of 3.8 percent, reaching USD 1.37 trillion in 2019 from USD 531 billion (in real terms) in 1990. Substantial differences can be observed regarding the patterns of growth of the agri-food trade. At the global level, total agri-food trade exhibited the high- est growth rate of 7 percent per year over the 2000- 09 period, outperforming the growth of 1.1 percent for the period 1990-99 and 3 percent for 2010-19. The growth patterns also varied across the country groups, with developing countries outperforming de- veloped countries over the period 2000-19. The growth in agri-food trade is the result of a com- bination of factors, including transport that is more efficient and progress in information, communica- The value of global agri-food trade in real terms has more than doubled in the past three decades, but growth has slowed down since the 2008 financial crisis. While continuing to grow, world agri- food trade did so at a slower pace than the total global merchandise trade. As a result, its share in total global merchandise exports has declined. Participation of developing countries in global agri-food markets is on the rise, underscoring their increasing significance in the global agricultural and food trade. Changing patterns of agri-food trade