Endless Appetites: How the Commodities Casino Creates Hunger and Unrest

CHAPTER 6

Hot Air

Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation in December 2010 alerted the world that a new crisis, fueled by food, had begun. It had first flared in June, as a hot summer across Russia burst into flames that extended into Mozambique—and ultimately, Cairo.

World food prices had stabilized in the first half of 2010. Economies were expanding again, and so were fields. Russia and its neighbors in the former Soviet Union were crucial new sources of production. Wheat crops in 2009 in countries that had been part of the USSR were 76 percent larger than a decade earlier. The Russian harvest alone rivaled its Cold War competitor, the United States. Together with Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and others of what agricultural analysts call the “Former Soviet ...