There are a number of reasons behind this. One is prolonged drought in Africa, meaning Africans in some areas have to try (with their limited funds) to buy grain elsewhere. Another is floods in China, but this is worse as the Chinese government can, will and is spending ridiculous amounts of money trying to end their grain shortage and in doing so worsening our grain shortage.
The post before me is right in pointing out the importance of feeding livestock that in turn feed China and India's growing penchant for meat, but wrong in implying that bio-fuels are not compounding the problem. In a globalized economy like Earth's, we all pay similar prices for grain (barring increased transport costs in some countries) meaning that the higher prices go, the worse it is for everybody, but most of all those that can least afford to pay: poor countries.
Often people try to argue that because third world countries are normally agricultural nations, they benefit from higher grain prices. Unfortunately this is not the case, as most studies indicate the increased prices rural farmers in poor nations must pay for their food and for the original grain they grow into more grain outweighs the benefits from higher grain prices at sale.
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