This book began with a conference held in 2007, organized in response to the ‘need to supplement the debates related to multilateral trade negotiations . . . with a clear understanding and reflection . . . on the type of agriculture sector trade policy that would be desirable for different developing countries, in boosting their growth and enhancing their food security situation.’ The global market price spikes of 2008, financial turmoil and global recession in 2008/09 and rising levels of food insecurity in 2009 have all followed the conference, underscoring the continued relevance of the conference's concerns. The papers in this edited volume usefully analyse the empirical record in eastern and southern Africa to suggest that a too-narrow focus on the use of trade and market policies and direct government interventions in markets to assure the supply of a key staple crop – the white maize on the book's cover – may be good politics, but is unlikely to be good for the food security of the poor or balanced, competitive growth of the agricultural sector. Rather, the evidence presented shows that governments should – contrary to current practice in most countries in the region – provide a stable, predictable trading environment that draws in private investors, encouraging them to build storage, move produce from surplus to deficit zones, compete with each other in providing processing services to the consumers, and stabilize prices through timely exports and imports. Governments' direct support should be directed to remedying the underinvestment in the public goods (roads, research, extension) and facilitating farmers' access to land.