Lack of food is rarely the reason people go hungry1. Even now, there is enough food in the world, with a bumper harvest this year, but more people cannot afford to buy the food they need. The rapid and simultaneous rise in world prices for all basic food crops-corn (maize), wheat, soybeans, and rice-along with other foods like cooking oils is having a devastating effect on poor people all over the world. The effects have been felt around the world by all except the truly wealthy.

Almost everybod's standard of living has been reduced as the middle class becomes increasingly careful about their food purchases, the near poor drop into poverty, and the poor suffer even more. With increased hunger and malnutrition, the young, old, infirm and other vulnerable groups will die prematurely or be harmed in other ways.

It is useful to distinguish between longer term and more recent developments in trying to understand and address the current global food crisis.