This war-driven food crisis, however, was in some sense artificial, given that it was not driven by any actual shortage of food in the world. Even with the Ukrainian wheat off the market, there was still plenty of grain to go around. The issue was how much it cost and how it was distributed. And Putin was not the only one who was exploiting this situation. Commodity traders make money off wild price swings, shippers make money off people desperate for grain, fertilizer manufacturers make money off farmers desperate to maximize their yields, and protofascist politicians are happy to exploit
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