Global coordination of wheat sowing: A possible policy against climate variability

Through an analysis of the sowing and harvesting times across all the regions of a tailored-for-wheat world geographic partition, we assess the temporal possibility of modifying the acreage of wheat crops in some regions in an attempt to offset the change in production caused by the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in the others. Using a computational model able to handle the complexity of the global system of wheat markets, we found that the adoption of a policy of cooperation can smooth out the effects that ENSO would have on international markets. In particular, the optimal policy we found would bring back prices toward those observed in the neutral phase by reducing them up to about 11% with El Niño, and, on average, about 1% with La Niña. Such an optimal policy would be favorable, especially to the in-need part of the world population. Furthermore, we found that Central Asia is potentially the strategic area for policy implementation.