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The presenter says that people would not have missed the higher prices at grocery stores. She adds that the costs of agricultural produce like fruits and vegetables have shot up. She then sets off to examine what’s behind the price surge and why it is happening now. She says it all started from mid-2020, which was a time when businesses were forced to shut down as part of quarantine measures. This resulted in supply bottlenecks and hoarding by consumers. This was aggravated by setbacks in key crop production. She explains that a severe drought in 2021 is blamed for a poor soybean harvest in Brazil, the world’s number one producer. Wheat crop in China also took a huge toll. Then Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent war drove food prices to all-time highs. The two countries are the world’s leading producers of wheat, barley, corn and so forth. The shortage of food supply triggered concerns over food security, which prompted countries like Indonesia to secure domestic supplies by banning palm oil export and others to hoard staple food so that their livelihoods would not be impacted. Truth be told, the people bearing the brunt of higher food prices are those who live in developing countries where food costs take up a bigger portion of their expenditures. But data showed that countries like the US were not immune to food price spikes. The presenter implies that high prices of food and other commodities across the board are likely to continue. Uncertain variables include weather conditions and the war which led to the boycotting of fertilizers from Russia and Belarus, all boiled down to the current reduced supply and high demand.