The food crisis of 2022 seems to be abating as soon as it erupted.

In March, the price of red spring wheat increased to almost $13 per bushel, forcing Egypt, the world's largest importer of wheat, to devalue its currency. It is currently trading at roughly $8, down by over a third. In April, Indonesia stopped exporting palm oil due to a similar price increase. Prices have already dropped by more than 40% from their peak. Since the beginning of May, corn prices have decreased by over a quarter. In the last several weeks, the prices of sugar and arabica coffee beans reached one-year lows and nine-month lows, respectively.

It's tempting to see this as a sign that the crisis that has caused the number of hungry people in the world to reach its greatest point since the middle of the 2000s is finally coming to an end. Sadly, it's unlikely that will happen.

This is due to the fact that, despite the emphasis they give to the issues of food insecurity, the pricing of agricultural commodities contracts on significant exchanges is only one of many factors that contribute to hunger in the globe, and in many situations, it isn't even the most significant one.

For instance, few of the world's starving people are purchasing their food with US money. In influencing the price paid on the ground, currency swings can therefore be just as significant as changes in commodity price benchmarks.

The price of wheat in US dollars has increased by around 23 percent due to the rise in commodity prices since the end of 2021, but the devaluation of the Egyptian pound has had an even greater negative impact, driving up local currency costs by another 25 percent. The third-largest consumer of wheat, Turkey, has seen prices rise by nearly 171 percent as a result of the devaluing lira. Due to the depreciation of the rupee in Pakistan, prices have increased by 53%.