Poorer countries are sometimes taking the the tack (or...

Poorer countries are sometimes taking the the tack (or continuing it) of subsidizing the main local food groups. This is taking more and more money away from everything else. It's either unrest (read loss of government) or subsidys. The article below says that high prices for rice may stay. This could be extended (the shrinkage in international trade) into the other staples.

article,

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/28/business/rice.php

part

"The more telling figure is that over the next year, international trade in rice is expected to decline more than 3 percent, when it should be expanding. The decline is attributable mainly to recent restrictions on rice exports in rice-producing countries like India, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, Cambodia and Egypt.

At first glance, this seems understandable, because a country may not wish to send valuable foodstuffs abroad in a time of need. Nonetheless, the longer-run incentives are counterproductive.

Export restrictions send a message to farmers that their crops are least profitable precisely when they are most needed. There is little incentive to plant, harvest or store enough rice - or any other crop, for that matter - as a hedge against bad times.

This tendency to skew supply and demand is also apparent in the Philippines, where the government is tracking down and arresting rice hoarders, who, of course, are simply storing rice for the possibility of even harder times to come.

In commodity markets, it is not uncommon for high demand to cause sharp increases in prices; on short notice, it is often hard to match the new demand with more supply. The question is whether supply, and trade, can grow to offset market tightness.

Restrictions on the rice trade run the risk of making shortages and high prices permanent. Export restrictions treat rice trade and production as a zero- or negative-sum game where one country's gain comes at the expense of another. That's hardly the best way to move forward in a rapidly growing world economy."