Rising Food Prices and Possible Reasons

[K. A. Pital]

Stas, this was also done during the Communist period, for funds (During Stalin's period), this causing some of the worst famines (After China) of the century, correct?

Yeah, it caused huge famines in various parts of the USSR in the early 1930s. I'm not sure that "after China" indicator qualifies, though - there were also Bengal, pre-Soviet Russia and Vietnam. There were really huge issues with calorie availability:

The Soviet 1930s famine was more sharp than the Tsarist Russian famines (1860-1917) because it was contrasted by a higher calorie availability. Look at all the lowest spikes in the 1900s - those are regular yearly famines with high death tolls in Russia.

I take it that the surge in prices has made these less effective, or were they never properly implemented?

No, why, they were and I think wheat/grain exports were curtailed (which also exacerbated the Central Asian crisis, us and Kazakhstan instituting export quotas). Bread prices, at the very least, remain more or less frozen. But that will only work till May, so I don't know what to expect.

[Mayabird]

It's not a new thing. During the Irish potato famine, the country was actually exporting grain and was generally a net exporter of food. It was more profitable to sell it outside the country than to keep a million people from starving to death.