Food prices hit record high in February, United Nations says

[OhioChick]

Source: AP

Thursday, March 03, 2011, 11:32 AM

ROME -- Global food prices have reached their highest point in 20 years and could increase further because of rising oil prices stemming from the unrest in Libya and the Mideast, a U.N. agency warned Thursday.

Skyrocketing food prices have been among the triggers for protests in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere, and raised fears of a repeat of the food price crises in 2007 and 2008.

Some experts point to key differences compared to those years: for one, the price of rice, an important food security commodity, is much lower today. Still, Oxfam called the hike "deeply worrying."

The Food and Agriculture Organization said in a statement that its food price index was up 2.2 percent last month, the highest record in both real, inflation-corrected terms and nominal terms since the agency started monitoring prices two decades ago.

Read more: http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2011/03/food_prices_hit_record_high_in.html

[aquart]

1. And that, my friends, is how cheap foreign labor goes all awry.

And comfy sweetheart deals with corrupt governments are left shattered on the newly-destabilized ground.

I love short-sighted policies.

What a shame that the greedy class doesn't believe in climate change.