Latin America may see food riots as commodities soar

LONDON: Countries in Latin America and Africa, including Bolivia and Mozambique, are most at risk of food riots as prices advance, the United Nations said. The past month’s protests in North Africa and the Middle East were partly linked to agriculture costs. World food prices climbed to a record in January, the UN said on February 3. Food prices are rising to “dangerous levels and threaten tens of millions of poor people” globally, World Bank president Robert Zoellick said on Tuesday.

“The low-income food deficit countries are on the front line of the current surge in world prices,” said Abdolreza Abbassian, a senior economist at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome, on February 14. Other countries where expensive food imports may become a “major burden” include Uganda, Mali, Niger and Somalia in Africa, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in Asia and Honduras, Guatemala, and Haiti in Latin America, he said.

Wheat traded at a record in Zhengzhou, China on February 14 and the grain, corn and soyabeans rallied to the highest levels in 2 1/2 years in Chicago the past week. Governments from Beijing to Belgrade are raising imports, limiting exports or releasing supply from stockpiles to curb inflation.

Higher prices of wheat, rice, sugar and dairy products helped push the FAO’s Food Price Index to a record last month. Protests in North Africa have driven Tunisia’s president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali into exile after 23 years in power and forced Hosni Mubarak to resign as Egypt’s president.

Higher food costs helped provoke deadly riots this year in countries including Algeria, and at least 13 people died in Mozambique last year.