The Economist magazine calls the end of the cheap food era (2011)

An era of cheap food has come to an end. A combination of factors—rising demand in India and China, a dietary shift away from cereals towards meat and vegetables, the increasing use of maize as a fuel, and developments outside agriculture, such as the fall in the dollar—have brought to a close a period starting in the early 1970s in which the real price of staple crops (rice, wheat and maize) fell year after year.

~The Economist magazine, "A special report on feeding the world: The 9-billion people question", February 24, 2011