In the EU it seems weather and leaving more land uncultivated. So in some ways a planned price increase by lowering production.

https://www.world-grain.com/articles/13660-usda-eu-grain-out...

The article you linked says that they had difficulty planting because of weather conditions - that doesn't seem planned, or in any way related to modern monetary theory.

With both France and the UK each projected to see a more than a 5-million-tonne reduction in their 2020-21 wheat crops, EU wheat output is forecast to fall by nearly 11 million tonnes year-on-year to 144 million tonnes due to a 700,000-hectare decrease in planted area.

That’s seems like they are removing land from production unless I understand that wrong.

I could be reading it wrong, but based on this:

> The European Union’s grain output in 2020-21 is forecast to decline by 3% over the previous year due to extremely challenging planting conditions

My understanding is that they cannot plant due to the weather conditions.

Looks like land abandonment is a growing concern https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/publication/eur-scientific-and-t...

There certainly was a massive late cold that too (extremely rare) impacted the Rhône banks (big fruit region in France). I don't know about Italy but we're in for a very expensive turn of year.

I'm not surprised wheat is touched too.

My only gripe is that prices usually don't come down when the original problem causing the spike went away (say one or two years after). I'd like to understand why but feel it's one of these questions I'm not going to like the answer...

Prices do frequently come down for wheat and other agricultural commodities. However those commodity prices are only loosely correlated to prices that you pay at the grocery store.

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/wheat

Ah, yes, good reminder, thanks. Then I have my baker to thank next time he raises prices... 'because wheat prices, you know' and never taking them down.