According to this Wall Street Journal article, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, says US monetary policy should not be blamed for rising food prices:
“Bernanke said constraints on supply — such as bad weather — along with increased demand are to blame for pushing up prices for food commodities.
Strong growth in emerging economies is moving millions of people from poverty to the middle class, changing their eating habits — “more beef and less grains and so on,” Bernanke said.
The Fed’s policies are aimed at growing the domestic economy and “to address stability in the United States,” he said. For some foreign countries facing high inflation, “their policies have not been such to keep growth and capacity in balance,” he said.
“I think it’s entirely unfair to attribute excess demand in emerging markets to U.S. monetary policy,” Bernanke said. Those nations can use their own monetary policy and adjust exchange rates to deal with their inflation problems, he said.
I tend to agree wholeheartedly with Bernanke, as many developing countries have a bad track record when it comes to managing inflation. That bad track record is often the result of bad monetary policy.
By the way, what the Chairman of the Federal Reserve describes — the fact that consumers in developing countries substitute protein for carbohydrates as income increases — is generally known as Bennett’s Law.