In 2008 India and Vietnam restricted their rice exports to prevent increases in their domestic rice prices, and world rice prices temporarily tripled. In 2011 the government of Thailand, at that time the leading rice-exporting country, implemented a policy to buy locally grown rice and withhold it from the market. The Thai government planned to export the rice at a profit after world rice prices had increased substantially. The actual outcome, as of early 2014, was that world rice prices were essentially unchanged and that Thailand had fallen to being the third-largest rice exporter. What factors probably contributed to the failure of the Thai government’s plan?