The world is running out of food. Or so you might have believed during the first half of 2008. Escalating food prices led to at least 40 riots in developing countries by June and it was commonly believed that the world had moved into a new era of high demand and constrained supply. Whereas real food prices fell 75% between 1974 and 2005, according to data from The Economist, between 2005 and 2008 real food prices increased by the same amount.
Such was the gravity of the situation, the world’s leaders congregated in Rome in early June to discuss the options for maintaining world food security. The director-general of the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Jacques Diouf, addressed an audience composed of leaders and policymakers from the four corners of the earth.
