Over the last two months, "food prices worldwide have risen 5 percent" and many fear that this could be a sign of riots similar to those during the last global food crisis in 2008.
In Mozambique, "higher prices set by the government were based on monetary exchange issues, not concerns about world supplies." The price of a loaf of bread, however, in Mozambique rose 25 percent in the past year "from about four to five U.S. cents." These "increases have had a dramatic impact in a nation where more than half the population lives in poverty."
Mozambique "grows only 30 percent of the wheat it needs" and the government says there is little it can do about the high prices.
Other countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe have also been impacted by the wheat shortage and rising world food prices. In Egypt, "where half the population depends on subsidized bread, recent protests over rising food prices left at least one person dead." In Pakistan, "the prices of many food items have risen by 15 percent or more following" floods that destroyed about 1/5 of the country's crops.
To read the Associated Press story, click here.
Posted: 09/03/2010
