You’ve heard the frightening statistics, seen the riots, and watched the food lines grow across the world. Have we entered some kind of permanent Malthusian trap? Or is there a way out of the global food crisis? Josette Sheeran, executive director of the U.N. World Food Program, says the situation is dire, but eminently solvable. Josette Sheeran: ‘This is a silent tsunami, and one that’s virtually hitting every developing nation on the earth.’ Foreign Policy: It seems like attention to the global food crisis hadn’t really reached critical mass until the past few weeks and months. Why is that? Josette Sheeran: The World Food Program is like the canary in the coal mine. Because we’re dealing with food supply for the world’s most vulnerable, we felt it earlier on. Some institutions, like the International Food Policy Research Institute, have been warning that the dynamics of world food supply were getting very precarious. But I don’t think it was until June, when prices went into an aggressive pattern of increase, that it started to get the world’s attention. And food riots that have broken out in 34 countries have certainly helped raise political awareness. Agriculture has not been […]