I agree with CNN that this is the biggest story right now-- forget the campaign, the candidates and the war in Iraq. This is turning into a world-wide disaster. Rice prices have gone up 75 percent, (450 percent annually) wheat has surged 120 percent in the last year.
The food hyper-inflation is bad enough, but it may be the canary in the mineshaft. But possible reasons for it may be even worse: high oil prices, peak oil, erosion, global warming, the death of bees are all terrible to consider. Or it may be simply ethanol that's causing the trouble. At the very least, our government should think twice about Ethanol.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/04/14/world.food.crisis/index.html