If inflation comes roaring back, the first place many people feel the pinch may be in food prices. The cost of corn, soya and wheat has fallen sharply from the levels they reached last summer at the height of the commodity boom. But lower prices mean lower returns per acre, so farmers are cutting plantings of marginally productive land to maximise profits.

European farmers cut plantings of winter wheat 2 per cent this year. In the US, which supplies half the world’s corn and a fifth of its wheat, officials expect plantings of those crops to decline 1.2 per cent and 7 per cent respectively. The US Department of Agriculture says aggregate 2009 plantings of the eight biggest grains could fall the largest amount in 20 years.