Commodity prices have spiked in recent weeks on harsh weather that has hit various parts of the world. Sugar prices last week surged to a three-decade high because of supply constraints stemming from cyclones and floods that have recently hit Australia, the world’s third-largest sugar producer behind Brazil and Thailand.

China will spend $1 billion to alleviate its worst drought in six decades — a long dry spell in the world’s largest wheat-growing region that threatens further jumps in the commodity’s global price. … China has claimed success with cloud seeding techniques. Silver iodide fired from canons and missiles caused a light smattering of snow in Henan and Shandong provinces, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

If the world has a poor harvest this year, food prices will rise to previously unimaginable levels. Food riots will multiply, political unrest will spread, and governments will fall. The world is now one poor harvest away from chaos in world grain markets.

Food inflation in many Asian countries, including China and India, is already in double digits, raising fears that the price pressures could spread more broadly to other sectors and pose a threat to both economic and social stability as millions of Asians live in poverty. Food prices hit a record high last month, moving beyond the levels that prompted riots in 2008 in countries as far afield as Egypt, Cameroon and Haiti.

to 18.32 percent