Ever seen a food riot? Staaaay tuned folks.....

Food costs at record high as U.N. warns of volatile era

The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) of the UN has been sending out warning signals for awhile. As the world has come out of the Great Recession the demand of commodities of all sorts has gone up. A lot. There has also been a spat of bad weather in the last year that has affected production.

Included among the commodities has been the demand for food. The recent events in Tunisia and Egypt were partly triggered by rising food prices. Trust me, it is not just these two countries. A week ago in northern Potosí (like a state) of Bolivia there was a food riot. It was not reported as such, but when people break into stores to get basic food stock, what else to you call it? Northern Potosí is known to be one of the poorest regions in Bolivia. There are a lot of reasons for this, including geography and generally low rain fall.

We will see more turbulence in Bolivia and other countries as the prices of food go up. Some have said that food prices in Bolivia and other countries could go up 20% this year. Others have gazed into the crystal ball and said "nope, maybe as much as 40%".  And I ask you, if you went to the supermarket in Dallas Texas or Canton Ohio or Sacramento California and you suddenly found that everything was 40% higher, what would you do? Maybe you could bear this for a few days or a week until your food pantry went empty. But when the kids don't have enough to eat and now suddenly you don't have enough money to buy what you need, what would you do?

2011 is going to be an interesting year. And just as the USA government was surprised by the events in northern Africa in the last few weeks, let's hope that they are not surprised by a genuine food crisis leading to political instability in a number of countries....