Food prices are rising as countries limit exports. Blame climate change, El Nino and Russia’s war

UNDATED (AP)- Restrictions on food exports are spilling over from rice and wheat to other essentials. This ranges from Tanzania’s limits on shipping onions to its neighbors and Morocco’s restrictions on tomatoes to ongoing bans of some kinds of rice in Asia. Countries are trying to protect their own supplies as the combined effect of the war in Ukraine, El Nino’s threat to food production and the increasing damage from climate change takes a toll. Experts say food stocks that the world is able to draw on have diminished in the past two years and that increased volatility is now the “new normal.”