This was my initial thought about FEI too, but now I'm not so sure.
Some of the realms were running huge surpluses of food before the re-balance. The more southern regions have never been fantastic in terms of food production, so this might just represent a more balanced leveling out of food production in the northern and northern-central regions when it's taken over the long term (rather than the very short period that's showing the sudden downward spike here).
Combined with the seasonal variations in FEI, it'll be difficult to decide conclusively until we see more data.
