Is it simply a matter of supply and demand being out of whack, to be balanced by letting market forces work their magic? This  analysis for the BBC suggests it's a bit more complicated than that.

For the BBC by Cornell University economics professor Kaushik Basur:

In thinking about global policy, we have to distinguish between the short and the long run.

In the immediate scenario there is no escape from massive government and international agency intervention in the form of aid from rich nations and subsidies to at-risk consumers.

If the state can bail out Bear Sterns, it surely can help poor consumers stave off famine.

Many economists will tell you that the ideal intervention to help the poor is to simply give them money (a negative income tax) - that shores up their income - rather than directly controlling prices. In general, this is correct advice; but not in this case.

Suppose we collect $1000 from the rich and hand this out to the poor. Since the rich spend a tiny fraction of their money on food and the poor a large fraction, this transfer will cause food prices to rise.

In general, this would not matter since the price was being driven up by the greater purchasing power of the poor. But in the present precarious situation, the risk is that if the negative income tax does not reach all the poor, then the ones who are left out will see their position deteriorating as prices rise further.

No escape

In the Bangladesh famine of 1974, it was the government's success in protecting the urban poor from food shortages that exacerbated the problems of the rural population.

Therefore, in a crisis like the present one, there is no escape from holding consumer prices down. Ideally, we should drive a wedge between the price that producers get and the price that consumers pay.

None of this can be a long-run policy, since it will cause food production to decline and governments to go bankrupt. Long-run policy has to be more market-oriented, creating incentives for producers to increase output and boosting the incomes of the poor.

Relative price fluctuations are an unavoidable part of an efficient economy. This becomes worrying when some people are so poor that a small rise in price becomes a life and death question for them.

This crisis therefore should also be a reminder that the level of inequality that prevails in the world today is untenable.