In 2008, a spike in food prices resulted in food riots around the world. The recession brought prices down while record crops allowed some stockpiles to be rebuilt and gave us a respite from the turmoil.

Unfortunately 2010 was a disaster for crops and their stockpiles. Severe droughts, record heat waves and fires combined with floods to cut crop outputs and global grain stockpiles, at the end of the 2010/11 season, were at a three-year low of 341 million tonnes.