Uh, I don't really buy it. Banks can not just fix arbitrary prices for food. They speculate on high food prices because they have reasons to believe that prices will rise. Those reasons are the real culprits.<p>And sorry, how bad is the infographic, if the chart just says "rising food prices driven by speculation" - that is not proof, that is just a claim. Unfortunately many people will just fall for it :-(
This doesn't address any other possible causes:<p><pre><code> * population growth
* biofuels
* climate change
* increased demand for 'expensive' food such as meat
* corruption
* the effect of 'fair trade' on food prices
(fair trade wants them to go up so farmers get more)
</code></pre>
Banks may be speculating that the prices are going to go up - but they will have reasons for this speculation. Once the price gets too high then banks will likely also start speculating that the price will go down.
Some related links worth reading:<p>How Goldman Sachs Created the Food Crisis<p><a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/27/how_goldman_sachs_created_the_food_crisis?page=full" rel="nofollow">http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/27/how_goldman...</a><p>The food bubble:
How Wall Street starved millions and got away with it<p><a href="http://www.harpers.org/archive/2010/07/0083022" rel="nofollow">http://www.harpers.org/archive/2010/07/0083022</a>
Strangely, the article doesn't actually explain the mechanism by which banks cause hunger. They point out (correctly) that short term price spikes are caused by speculation, without explaining the long term price increases.
Another significant element in the rise of global food prices is the devaluation of the USD. The US exports considerable amounts of wheat, and as more money is printed this inflation increases the cost of US wheat for importing nations. Furthermore, USD inflation and monetary policy affects food economics in ways far beyond that of buying wheat from the US: consider that low interest rates make borrowing money for speculation quite easy and with less risk. In addition, there are a number of factors causing shortages in the production of wheat, such as droughts, bad weather, and diseases that were once though gone but are now resurgent due to the lack of genetic diversity in wheat strains.<p>From June 2010 to January 2011 the cost of wheat increased by 73%, according to the World Bank. The true price of this is not only in the suffering of individual humans and their families, but in the destabilizing of governments and the revolutions seen in the Arab Spring.
For all those who "don't get it", read jsmcgd's link.
For convenience I'll repeat it here
"How Goldman Sachs Created the Food Crisis"
<a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/27/how_goldman_sachs_created_the_food_crisis?page=full" rel="nofollow">http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/27/how_goldman...</a><p>The very briefest answer is that G.S. created a "long only" investment vehicle based on food staples with no mechanism for shorting it.
The World Development Movement has published a report today which explains exactly how speculation impacts on real food prices, and outlines why climate change, population growth, biofuels etc are not to blame for the short-term price rises we've seen recently. Well worth a read!<p><a href="http://www.wdm.org.uk/stop-bankers-betting-food/broken-markets-how-financial-regulation-can-prevent-food-crisis" rel="nofollow">http://www.wdm.org.uk/stop-bankers-betting-food/broken-marke...</a>