If words were food, nobody would go hungry

Investment in agriculture is soaring. So, worryingly, is distrust of markets and trade

At the height of the food-price spike in 2008, many of the biggest food producers banned the export of crops (they sought to cushion the domestic impact of rising world prices). Most of these restrictions have been lifted and replaced by a variety of price and marketing policies. Many of them are sensible. Kenya, for example, improved peoples’ nutrition by removing restrictions on the sale of unpasteurised milk (milk is one of the most important foodstuffs in east Africa)…