In Africa, food riots have swept across the continent, with recent protests in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Senegal. In most of West Africa, the price of food has risen by 50 percent—in Sierra Leone, 300 percent. Last week, African finance ministers warned the rise in international food prices “poses significant threats to Africa’s growth, peace and security.” Other protests have been held this past week in countries like Cambodia, Indonesia, Egypt. In Haiti, at least five people have died in riots over 50 percent price hikes for rice, beans and fruit since last year. The demonstrations continued Monday outside the national palace in Port-au-Prince.

Last month, the World Food Program issued a rare appeal for an additional $500 million in funding. For its part, the Bush administration has reduced emergency food aid. Last month, the US Agency for International Development said that a 41 percent surge in prices for wheat, corn, rice and other cereals over the past six months has generated a $120 million budget shortfall that will force the agency to reduce emergency operations.

... one of the major issues is, of course, the price of oil. I mean, one of the problems with the way our food reaches us today is that it is industrial, it is very fossil fuel-intensive, not just to the distance the food travels, but also in the fertilizer. You know, fossil fuel is required to produce fertilizer, pesticide, these sorts of things. And so, when the price of oil is over $100 a barrel, that combines with all the other factors to make a perfect storm where food prices are absolutely beyond the means of the poorest people.

The crisis is widespread and the result of numerous causes a kind of "perfect storm" leading to panic in many places:
* In Thailand, farmers are sleeping in their fields because thieves are stealing rice, now worth $600 a ton, right out of the paddies.
* Four people were killed in Egypt in riots over subsidized flour that was being sold for profit on the black market.
* There have been food riots in Morocco, Senegal and Cameroon.
* Mexico's government is considering lifting a ban on genetically modified crops, to allow its farmers to compete with the United States.
* Argentina, Kazakhstan and China have imposed restrictions to limit grain exports and keep more of their food at home.
* Vietnam and India, both major rice exporters, have announced further restrictions on overseas sales.
* Violent food protests hit Burkina Faso in February.
* Protesters rallied in Indonesia recently, and media reported deaths by starvation.
* In the Philippines, fast-food chains were urged to cut rice portions to counter a surge in prices.
* Millions of people in India face starvation after a plague of rats overruns a region, as they do cyclically every 50 years.
* Officials in Bangladesh warn of an emerging "silent famine" that threatens to ravage the region.
According to some experts, the worst damage is being done by government mandates and subsidies for "biofuels" that supposedly reduce carbon dioxide emissions and fight climate change. Thirty percent of this year's U.S. grain harvest will go to ethanol distilleries. The European Union, meanwhile, has set a goal of 10 percent bio-fuels for all transportation needs by 2010.
"A huge amount of the world's farmland is being diverted to feed cars, not people," writes Gwynne Dyer, a London-based independent journalist.

We are one bad harvest away from total end of world chaos with a billion dead. Even without a bad harvest we are in for some troubling times. I think is fair to state the the Earth is at max capacity right now. And I mean Right Now. For every person born today someone somewhere must die to make room.

I think is fair to state the the Earth is at max capacity right now. And I mean Right Now. For every person born today someone somewhere must die to make room.

There is a strong relationship between poverty and state weakness. Poorer countries tend to be weaker ones, in part because they are more vulnerable to conflict. The United States must complement the Millennium Challenge Account's focus on "good performers" with parallel strategies to reduce poverty in the world's most challenging states.