ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

2007–08 world food price crisis

When we talk about the 2007-08 world food price crisis, we are talking about a time when food prices all around the world became very expensive. This meant that people had to spend more money than usual to buy the same amount of food they needed to live and be healthy.

The reason for this crisis was because there were a lot of things happening all at once that made it harder to get food. For example:

- There were droughts and other natural disasters that happened in different parts of the world, which meant that farmers couldn't grow as much food as they normally could.
- There were also problems with the way food was being used. For example, some countries were using crops that could be used as food to make biofuels instead, which made it harder to get enough food for people to eat.
- Finally, there were more people in the world than ever before, which meant that there was more demand for food, but not enough supply to meet that demand.

All of these things together made it so that food prices went up very quickly. This meant that people who were already struggling to make ends meet had an even harder time buying enough food. It was especially hard for people who lived in countries where the government didn't have enough money to help them out.

Thankfully, the crisis didn't last forever. Eventually, the natural disasters ended and farmers were able to grow more food again. Governments also started to take steps to make sure that people had enough to eat, and the crisis slowly started to go away. But it was a scary time for many people, and it reminds us how important it is to make sure that everyone has enough to eat, no matter what.