Wheat prices surged to a two-year high while shares in European brewers and food producers fell on Friday as markets reacted to the sudden imposition of a ban on grain exports from drought-hit Russia. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin moved decisively on Thursday to halt exports of grain and flour from August 15 to the end of the year and the country’s railroad monopoly said on Friday it will stop loading...

Wheat prices have staged the most drastic rise in more than 50 years, as a drought in Russia fuels growing worries that it could lead to a global shortage of the grain. Harsh heat and a lack of rain in Russia have killed half of the crop in some hard-hit areas. The slump in production in one of the world's most fertile breadbaskets has pushed prices up 62% since early June,...

With 267 people being born every minute and 108 dying, the world’s population will top seven billion next year, a research group projects, while the ratio of working-age adults to support the elderly in developed countries declines precipitously because of lower birthrates and longer life spans. In a sobering assessment of those two trends, William P. Butz, president of the Population Reference Bureau, said that “chronically low birthrates in developed countries...

Politicians, from the ruling party and opposition alike, are grappling with the problem of how to effectively communicate with their constituencies on the issue of high food inflation. One had thought it would be easy for the opposition to mount a campaign on rising prices against the ruling coalition, but it appears that inflation and its impact on the political economy is far more complex today than it was 10...

Sujatha Sundaran, 25, sits on a rickety bench and points to a rubber nursery that was a helipad about a decade ago in Mundakkai colony in the heart of Kerala’s northern district of Kasargod. Local children used to watch with awe as the choppers flew overhead and sprayed the insecticide endosulfan on the cashew groves of the Plantation Corp. of Kerala Ltd, a state government undertaking. She was eight when she...