Yet another book is being written about the need for a strategic food reserve, this one by an organization with the “unbiased” name of “ACTION for Food Reserves.” It asserts the usual warning that “Two bad harvests in a row could mean famine for the world.” To the author’s point, food surpluses are also burdensome since they impose lower incomes on producers. But as WPI’s Bob Kohlmeyer often notes, governments have historically had troubles managing reserves and reserves can be price depressing as well. It is the reason that even adept government managers like the Chinese have been shedding surpluses.   The 2007/08 food security scare was mostly the latter, a scare rather than a tru...