China’s Secrecy Seen Thwarting Drive to Prevent Food Riots

After India banned exports of wheat in 2007, neighboring countries panicked and limited their grain sales, which pushed prices to records and sparked food riots from Egypt to Haiti for the next year.

After the crisis passed, global leaders agreed the lack of reliable information about crop inventories led nations to hoard their own harvests, worsening the situation. In response, the Group of Eight nations in 2011 pledged to do a better job sharing agriculture data.