Food prices worldwide are rising. People are starving. People are protesting. With no end in sight, this issue seems incredibly important. A slew of journalists are discussing the complex issue involving food, fuel, natural disasters, politics, and more. Luckily, I have not been hit hard by rising food costs, but I know that others have been. A story on NPR  inspired my post.

This article in the New York Times discusses the link between biofuels and rising food prices worldwide. The article is full of facts and quotes, but it does not accurately consider the larger issues. For more insight, I cite this article in the L.A. Times, which discusses the United States’ role in Haitian food riots.

For years industrialized nations have been “helping” poor nations survive by providing food. Sadly, developing nations have (almost) by definition, agricultural economies meaning one of the few goods a developing nation can provide is food. Foreign aid artificially increases supply so that the working poor cannot hawk their wares.

There are numerous countries that survive on agriculture, so why don’t they step up and make some money on the high demand and low supply?