“Two years ago there was a Christmas lunch in one of those trendy boutique hotels near Smithfield Market, a gathering of traders and others of ill repute with a collective urge to behave badly. The hedge fund guy sitting beside me was asked about his next plan for global domination. He’d done houses and gold – what was the new new thing? “Food,” he said between mouthfuls of lobster. “We’re piling into food. Weather’s getting weird, so there’ll be crop failures. There won’t be enough to go around.” His words turned out to be prophetic. Last week world food prices surged to a peak for the seventh month running, according to the United Nations. The bets were placed a while ago. Now it’s collection time.”