> and there aren't cheaper beans and rice to buy at the grocery store I mean, this is a question of policy. The US Federal Government mandates that crops be b

> and there aren't cheaper beans and rice to buy at the grocery store I mean, this is a question of policy. The US Federal Government mandates that crops be burned as fuel, which hugely pushes up the price of corn and in turn that pushes up the price of other things that could be grown using that land. We don't explicitly buy up and destroy crops anymore, or pay farmers not to grow them, but the food supply is being deliberately contracted as a matter of federal policy to keep farming profits high. It seems bonkers to say that there's nothing we could do about rising food prices when we're literally paying to (from the perspective of the food supply) destroy food and keep it scarce.