"I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food. No this is not a drill." - Brett Arends

There is a time for food, and a time for ethical appraisals. This was the case even before Bertolt Brecht gave life to that expression in Die Driegroschen Oper. The time for a reasoned, coherent

understanding for the growing food crisis is not just overdue, but seemingly past. Robert Zoellick of the World Bank, an organisation often dedicated to flouting, rather than achieving its claimed goal of poverty reduction, stated the problem in Davos in January this year.

'Hunger and malnutrition are the forgotten Millennium Development Goal.'