Source: Financial Times, 16th June 2011

From copper and silver to corn and coffee, a whole range of commodity markets have spent the last six months flirting with multiyear highs. The reason for the price rises is largely benign: surging demand in emerging economies such as China and India is a corollary of rising living standards. But the consequences are not: high input prices can slow economic growth and lead to a more generalised rise in price levels. Worse, a jump in the cost of food is a matter of life and death for the world's 1bn chronically hungry.