Rice being the most important source of calories for the world's poor, the spiralling prices of rice in world markets in 2007/08 dealt a major shock to food security in developing countries. Based on a FAO workshop in 2009 that brought together a very wide range of expertise on rice markets, this book explores the origins of the world rice crisis, the nature of domestic policy responses and the prospects of preventing cyclical crises in the future. It provides a detailed empirical analysis of the rice crisis through a series of overview papers and country studies of major actors in the world rice markets. The key insight from the book is that rice market fundamentals were not the cause of the rice crisis. The dynamics of rice markets were fundamentally different from those of other cereals like wheat and maize that also experienced large price spikes. Government policy decisions, ostensibly aimed at protecting domestic consumers, were decisive in sparking and sustaining the crisis. The country studies are very useful in understanding the crisis as a culmination of underlying trends in the major producing, exporting and importing economies. An empirical examination of the debate surrounding the role of financial speculation in the rice crisis is also attempted. The prospects of future stability are also considered in the context of agricultural commodity market linkages to volatile energy markets through biofuel expansion and climate change induced instability of production and yields. The key message from this book is that thinly traded world rice markets continue to remain vulnerable to periodic crisis given the dominant role of governments in international trade in rice.