Soaring commodities prices once again haunt the world economy. The global recovery has seen prices surge. Many commodities are near or above their 2008 peaks. Maize is an astounding $290 per tonne, and oil is back above $100 a barrel. Soaring food and energy prices now pose severe economic, political, and social risks in developing countries.

Finance ministers from the Group of 20 leading economies meet in Paris today to discuss the food crisis against a backdrop of rising hunger and political instability in food-scarce countries in Africa, the Middle East and beyond. President Nicolas Sarkozy has put food security among the top objectives of France’s G20 leadership, but the G20 has yet to adopt a convincing line of attack.

Global food supplies are being stretched by increased growth. China’s economy is roughly 20 times larger than at the start of market reforms in 1978; India’s is roughly four times larger than in 1991, when its reforms began. The world’s resource demands are soaring and will soon outstrip capacity without a shift to sustainable technologies and decisive action to stabilise population. Human-induced climate change is making things worse: heatwaves in Russia and Ukraine this summer sharply cut grain production, while northern China is facing a potentially massive 2011 drought, which could severely aggravate the global grain shortfalls.