The use of public stocks as a mechanism for providing either systemically higher than market prices to producers or below market prices to consumers opens a wider range of issues, in terms of both the effectiveness of price policies in addressing domestic objectives and their external implications for domestic markets. Policies that stabilise prices around market levels need not have such effects, but there remain questions about the domestic effectiveness of public stockholding as a component of even “price neutral” buffer stock schemes, as well as the implications of such schemes for international markets. A recent World Bank review of national and regional experiences concluded that while public stocks could contribute to addressing short-term emergency needs they have not been an effective instrument to stabilise prices (World Bank, 2012c). Similarly, the international organisations’ 2011 report to the G20 rejected the use of buffer stocks to stabilise prices as costly and ineffective, although it did see a role for small-scale food security emergency reserves to assist the most vulnerable (FAO, OECD et al.