The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization is conducting an emergency meeting today (September 24) in Rome. The purpose is to get a handle on the current increase in the prices of staple foods, particularly among cereals, and to prevent a repeat of the 2007-2008 food crisis, when global prices rose so steeply food riots emerged in all corners of the world and hunger in regions that already knew deprivation became even more pronounced.

The increase in the price of wheat will not mean very much to us, the citizens of relatively prosperous countries. It’ll be felt—in the most literal sense of the term—by the members of the Global South, where a significant portion of one’s income can go quite quickly toward buying food.

Fortunately, the FAO appears to recognize that these cyclical increases in the price of food are largely the product of an unstable global market and, therefore, somewhat within our collective control, if the political will can be encouraged. Although the prices of commodities may increase with shortages in food production—which is a partial explanation in light of the heat wave and wildfires in Russia and the subsequent wheat export ban—the most significant cause of this current swell in prices is the recent phenomenon of “market speculation”, or, as the World Development Movement puts it, “gambling on hunger in financial markets”.

With weakened regulations, investment banks like Goldman Sachs have entered the commodities market, where they, essentially, bet on food by “investing”, or, more accurately, profiteering, on changes in prices. Evidence abounds to show that those commodities subject to speculation have experienced dramatic price fluctuations, producing instability in the markets of local communities and, inevitably, hunger.

It’s natural to believe that such hardships in the Global South are caused by infertile land, poor farming techniques, technological backwardness, and related deficiencies, but this is simply untrue. This is not a crisis of production, but one of management. We are operating within a profoundly flawed economic system which does not do an adequate enough job of distributing resources fairly. As we’re seeing in places like Niger and Mozambique, there is food, but it’s simply too expensive for anyone to afford.

According to its Web site, the FAO intends to evaluate the potential remedies for these recurring periods of market volatility. The timing could not be better considering that the United Nations just held, from September 20 to 22, its Millennium Development Goals Summit. With the first of eight goals being the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, this is a critical time for the FAO to find long-term solutions to this problem. Staying the course traveled by many western nations of simply infusing poorer countries with aid and food without getting at the root problem—an inadequate international market—will not do the world’s most vulnerable any good. Only a real restructuring of the way in which basic commodities are bought and sold will approximate justice. Let’s hope the day’s meeting will be fruitful.

Daniel Tseghay is a Vancouver-based journalist.