World agricultural markets have fundamentally changed over the past ten years. Following almost three decades of decline, prices for many agricultural commodities have peaked in recent years and become more volatile as a result of temporary disruptions to supply and/or increased demand. This trend is likely to continue as supply pressures arise from climate change, demand for biofuels increases and the financialization of agricultural commodities (speculation) deepens. Concerns over high commodity prices, coupled with occasional food safety outbreaks, have raised interest in designing effective risk mitigation strategies among the private sector, national governments and donor agencies as risk impacts upon reliability and can push costs and price volatility even higher.