the price boom was fueled by numerous factors including low past investment in extractive commodities, weak dollar, fiscal expansion and lax monetary policy in many countries, and investment fund activity. On the other hand, the combination of adverse weather conditions, the diversion of some food commodities to the production of biofuels, and government policies (including export bans and prohibitive taxes) brought global stocks of many food commodities down to levels not seen since the early 1970s, created a "perfect storm" further accelerating the price increases that eventually led to the 2008 rally. The weakening and/or reversal of these factors coupled with the financial crisis that erupted in September 2008 and the subsequent global economic downturn induced sharp price declines across most commodity sectors. Yet, the main price indices are still twice as high compared to their 2000 real levels, begging once more the question about the real factors affecting them. The paper concludes that a stronger link between energy and non-energy commodity prices has been the dominant factor in the boom of agricultural and food prices, and is likely to be the dominant influence on developments in commodity, and especially food, markets. The analysis shows that demand by emerging economies, often cited as a key factor behind the food price surge of 2008, in fact it was much less of a factor than is often sited. The paper also argues that the effect of biofuels on food prices has not been as large as originally thought. On the other hand,