There’s been much talk in the media about how the initial protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Jordan were, at least partly, sparked by unrest due to rising commodity and food prices. What’s been discussed much less is the underlying cause of these price spikes. Is it speculation, or an actual increase in consumption (or a decrease in yields)? I hadn’t thought much about it until a reader sent me this article written by Joel Brinkley, a Stanford journalism professor who’s a foreign correspondent for the NYT (syndicated in my hometown’s daily newspaper): The world is heading into a food crisis again, barely three years after the last one in 2008. That, not political reform, animated the riots and demonstrations
Food Prices
