There are a few upsides to the ‘food crisis.’ Chris Blattman highlights one:

The rural poor are often the principal concern of anti-poverty programs, and many produce the very foods that are rising in price. That means the historically poor are getting wealthier. Not a peep from them? Well, finding them requires leaving the comfy capital and makes a less compelling news leader. But they could at least bury the observation on page A19. Alas, no.

The rise in food prices is creating a transfer of wealth from net consumers to net producers. Net consumers tend to live in urban slums. Net producers tend to live in mud shacks hundreds of miles from the capital.