When will those occupying spaces of “power” ever get the message right? As the world faces a worsening food crisis – the third in 15 years, experts say – one would think that a convening of so many governments as we saw at the “Uniting for global food security” conference in Berlin in late June would result in strong and smart actions. Nope. Instead, we get a couple of new coalitions, a bit more money on the table and a lot of business as usual. It’s nowhere what’s needed to turn the crisis around.

A lot of new data and analysis have been coming out the last few weeks which give us a better understanding of what’s going on and how we might deal with it. Here are some key things we’ve learned.

We face a price crisis, not a food shortage: Food prices have been rising all around the world together with, and partly because of, energy costs.