This edition of the FAO"s annual review of food and agricultural commodities and trade marks a significant departure from past issues, in that it concentrates exclusively on in-depth analyses of major issues identified as important to world agricultural commodity market developments over the past two years. These include falling commodity prices, the changing experiences of food import bills for developing countries, the changing nature of food emergencies, issues of transmission of market signals from international to domestic markets, the impact of the WTO Doha development round on developing countries and tariff escalation in agricultural commodity markets.