Food prices are a double-edged sword

Higher food prices are good for farmers and bad for poor consumers, particularly those who live on the edge of undernourishment. This is totally tautological, but the Michael Pollan/Vandana Shiva side of the food debate appears to ignore this frequently by decrying the low costs of industrial production as an unadulterated, obesity-causing evil.

As real food prices fall over the last half century, undernourishment as a proportion of world population was cut almost in half (22% to 13%), and then it spiked recently due largely to higher food prices.

That's all (but I expect to link back to this post frequently as this comes up all the time).