Bumper harvests, healthy stockpiles but coronavirus world is undernourished

Contained global food costs haven't stopped inflation spikes in India, Pakistan and elsewhere, as supply disruptions hit.

Bumper harvests and healthy stockpiles coming into 2020 have helped the world dodge the worst of food-security worries triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic. Staples have been plentiful enough--and oil cheap enough--to avoid a repeat of the 2007-2008 crisis, and supply lines have held. Nutrition has suffered anyway. That’s the result of migrant laborers being kept home, children being shut out of school and workers losing jobs, in both emerging and developed markets. The economic consequences will linger.

Just over a decade ago, low stocks, bad crops and high crude prices (which drive up demand for biofuels and increase input costs) combined