The negative socio-economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic are widely discussed. However, relatively less attention is paid to its impact on the world commodity price formation including energy and food prices. The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on world energy commodity prices and their interactions with world food commodity prices. Using the World Bank data on commodity prices we look for evidence of changes in energy and food prices caused by occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was assumed to be a negative shock to the global economy in terms of both supply and demand. Based on data series analysis of indices of world energy and food commodity prices, it is evident that after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic the energy prices, especially oil prices, plummeted. Food prices followed the same direction; however, their plunge was much less extreme. In general, it can be concluded that the pandemic caused a severe energy price shock which clearly had a negative impact on global economic growth, but the scale of this impact differs depending on the type of economic sector and countries’ net export positions in energy and food trade.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most striking recent technology developments. Potentially, it can significantly affect all areas of economic activities including agriculture. The paper addresses two issues such as the actual essence of AI and its most important current and expected...

Economic growth and societal well-being are highly dependent on the availability and efficient use of energy resources. This process evolves over time, along with changing developmental challenges, leading to an alteration of the world energy mix. The role of renewable energy sources in addressing these challenges has been widely recognized, but mostly from the ecological and climate change perspectives. Not enough focus has been paid to economic growth effects, such as potential job creation and income increases related to this process, often taking place in rural areas due to the availability of space and raw materials. In this context, the first objective of this study is to analyze the complementarity and substitution effects of investments in renewables and their connectedness with global economic growth. The second is to discuss the importance of effective strategic planning in supporting the growth of rural areas by promoting the production of renewable energy, based on selected international examples, including the EU Vision for Agriculture and Food recently presented by the European Commission. Using various data sources and employing basic statistical tools, we found that investing in renewable energy contributes to global economic growth. We also show how different countries view the indispensable role of rural areas in this process differently in their strategic policy documents.

Prices and quantities in agricultural commodity and food product markets are subject to constant changes due to evolving supply and demand conditions. Big and sudden shifts in supply or demand may lead to price movements that bring negative consequences for food producers or consumers. Factors causing such movements can be of different natures, but substantial changes in the world energy price levels are supposed to be one of the most important. The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of global energy price shocks on the evolution of food commodities and food consumer prices. Using the World Bank data on the respective price indices, we looked for shocks in these data series by utilizing statistical tools. Having identified three global energy price shocks in the period 2000–2024 induced by the financial crisis of 2008, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the outbreak of war in Ukraine, their influence on the world agricultural commodity prices and food consumer prices was assessed. It was found that the series of energy, food commodity, and food consumer price indices were related in the long term. Also, the occurrence of global energy price shocks to a visible extent translated into global food commodity and food consumer price shocks. Applying various statistical and econometric techniques, including Chow tests and MS-VAR modelling, enables the identification of which breaking points led to regime changes between the analysed variables. The most sensitive to the structural breaking points appeared to be the relation between energy and consumer food prices. This discovery can be considered our major contribution.