Originally published on DailyKos, and republished here by permission of the author.

Back in 2008 I wrote two little noticed diaries about speculative buying that helped to drive food prices higher (here and here), and surprise, surprise, our friends from Goldman Sachs are well represented in this mix of global finance companies.

Two years later, the world food market is still seriously exposed to speculators artificially driving up prices and worsening the risks of malnutrition, and according to one of the world’s leading agricultural researchers, Joachim von Braun, the head of the International Food Policy Research Institute (von Brown was one of the first to write about flawed regulatory regimes in banking and finance driving up food prices) an even bigger food crisis is looming, exacerbated as well by climate change. A visit to his site is well worth your time as he speaks eloquently about food and water.

The food crisis of 2007/2008 is now well documented. According to Paul Jay, from 2007 to 2008 the price of maize in Ethiopia went up 141 percent, retail wheat flour in Peshawar, Pakistan, went up 82 percent, rice in Thailand up 73 percent and this had little to do with supply and demand and much more to do with speculation by the usual suspects.

In March of 2008 the price of food commodities hit an all-time high, sending 100 million people into the ranks of the hungry, worldwide.

You can trust neither the rainy season sky nor babies’ bottoms. [Ethiopia] 

Ethiopians have been farming for millennia. They have also faced severe food shortages for about as long. Reliance on natural rainfall for farming is at times similar to gambling in a casino – except with literally deadly consequences when one loses. This begs the question of why these people who have historically innovated in all manners of technology have not been able to simply copy modern agricultural methods from others to achieve food security in recent times. 

If you haven’t heard already they are about to do so. Well sort of; they are going to start by using their land and labor to achieve food security for the Saudi’s first. They are not alone. Since 2004, 2.5 million hectares of African land has been snapped up by the wealthy of our world. That is equivalent to 138 farms the size of the largest one in the world located in north western Canada. The pace of land acquisition is accelerating in 2009 and the scramble is on. But who are the combatants and what do they really want? 

In a community of beggars, stealing and not begging, is considered a crime. [Ghana] 

Kofi Annan has a new job. He is leading AGRA, The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa.