Most of us are used to buying food when we want and it is disconcerting to find that no amount of money will buy you a meal.

It happened to me once near Quelimane in Mozambique in the 1980s. Even the offer of US dollars in the midst of abject poverty produced only shrugs, because there was simply no food to buy. And it is happening now to the Philippines. Manila has not been able to buy enough rice abroad to secure food for its people, because no one has wanted to sell.