Few know that world hunger was very nearly eradicated in our lifetimes. In the past five years, however, widespread starvation has suddenly reappeared, and chronic hunger is a major issue on every continent. In an extensive investigation of this disturbing shift, Jean Ziegler—one of the world’s leading food experts—lays out in clear and accessible terms the complex global causes of the new hunger crisis. Ziegler’s wide-ranging and fascinating examination focuses on how the new sustainable revolution in energy production has diverted millions of acres of corn, soy, wheat, and other grain crops from food to fuel. The results, he shows, have been sudden and startling, with declining food reserves sending prices to record highs and a new global commodities market in ethanol and other biofuels gobbling up arable lands in nearly every continent on earth. Like Raj Patel’s pathbreaking Stuffed and Starved, Betting on Famine will enlighten the millions of Americans concerned about the politics of food at home—and about the forces that prevent us from feeding the world’s children.

Commodity futures prices exploded in 2007-2008 and concerns about a new type of speculative participant in commodity futures markets began to emerge. The main argument was that unprecedented buying pressure from new "commodity index" investors created massive bubbles that resulted in prices substantially exceeding fundamental value. At the time, it was not uncommon to link concerns about speculation and high prices to world hunger, food crises, and civil unrest. Naturally, this outcry resulted in numerous regulatory proposals to restrict speculation in commodity futures markets. This book presents important research on the impact of index investment on commodity futures prices that the authors conducted over the last fifteen years. The eleven articles presented in the book follow the timeline of our involvement in the world-wide debate about index funds as it evolved after 2007. We also include an introductory chapter, new author forewords for each article chapter, and a lessons learned chapter to round out the book. Policy-makers, researchers, and market participants will find the book not only functions as useful documentation of the debate; but, also as a natural starting point when high commodity prices inevitably create the next speculation backlash.

First Published in 2014. This book maps the issues and traces the U.S. government's efforts to properly regulate, monitor, and prevent financial speculation and price manipulation in various markets. It begins with the period from the late nineteenth century to the first congressional efforts at regulation in the 1930s and continues on to the present, with a full chapter on the legal and financial aspects of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. The book also discusses the difficulty of initiating successful prosecutions of financial fraud and price manipulation and proposes a new approach to preventing manipulative practices.