The banks collapsed in 2008 – and our food system is about to do the same | George Monbiot

Massive food producers hold too much power - and the regulators scarcely understand what is happening. Sound familiar?

For the past few years, scientists have been frantically sounding an alarm that governments refuse to hear: the global food system is beginning to look like the global financial system in the run-up to 2008.

While financial collapse would have been devastating to human welfare, food system collapse doesn't bear thinking about. Yet the evidence that something is going badly wrong has been escalating rapidly. The current surge in food prices looks like the latest sign of systemic instability.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist