Were those food riots engineered? You could say so, many had warned for a long time about the rising costs and about the Feds printing causing inflation in commodities. Bennocide is on board the obama titanic not only is he monetizing our debt allowing the spending to continue and devaluing our dollar, his policies are causing speculation.
In understanding the economy there , food is funneled to the people with government involvement. They do not have a free market there with free participants prepared to bring in goods to meet shortfalls or other demands. The food distribution infrastructure is not developed at all like ours.
Here In America , IF there is a market void, it is met by other people who spot it and sell into it.