Two roads diverged in the food crisis: Global policy takes the one more travelled

The 2007-08 food price crisis provoked renewed policy debate on a wide range of important matters long sidelined from mainstream consideration—the role and value of smallholder agriculture, the need for public investment in the sector, the importance of public agricultural research, the value for developing countries of growing more of their own food, the dangers posed by climate change in an era of thin global commodity markets, and the potential value of food reserves for both food security and price stability.