The Effect Of Rising Food Prices On Political Stability : NPR

The Effect Of Rising Food Prices On Political Stability : NPR: "SIEGEL: 2008 is not a comforting thought, though. During that year, when food prices hit their previous peak, there were food riots in Bangladesh, in Haiti, Egypt, Cameroon. Dozens of countries were said to face food crises that year. Where are people this year most vulnerable to food price increases and where might those increases jeopardize even political stability?

Mr. BLUMENTHAL: Well, just about any country where you have the population expending a large share of its income on food, you're going to have a problem. And we have many countries where 50, 60, 70 percent of their income goes to pay for the cost of food. So when you have, say, 25 percent increase in its cost, that's going to be a substantial impact on them.

If we look at Tunisia as an example, it's not unusual. You mentioned the political circumstances there. If we look at the Food and Agriculture Organization, which lists generally about 50 countries that are food insecure, one of the common factors across most of them is corruption, poor governance, followed by civil strife. And then in the lower category would be adverse weather conditions."