| August 9, 2010 |
As the Russian landscape burns and Eurasia's agricultural zone sizzles in a record heat wave, the agricultural commodities markets are threatening to spawn a food crisis akin to the one in 2008. Mixed signals regarding the size of the global wheat supply and the likely impact of Russian Premier Vladimir Putin's August 4 decision to halt all exports of the grain from Russia for the rest of 2010 are leading to concerns that price inflation in the wheat market could usher another food crisis. The shortage in 2008 left hundreds of millions of people worldwide unable to afford basic foodstuffs, aggravating the overall impact of the later global financial crisis upon poor countries.
A key lesson of 2008 is that volatile global financial markets can result in food commodity price speculation that has dire consequences for the world's poorest. The inflationary trend that slammed poor countries in early 2008 began with a slow but steady rise in commodity trading prices in early 2007. By the summer of 2007, the overall volume of trading on the U.S. food commodities markets had skyrocketed to record levels, signaling that large investors recognized weaknesses in the stock and real estate markets and were seeking safer havens. The result was a phenomenal escalation, not only in the volume of food commodity investment, but also in trading prices.
