Food Inflation, Riots Spark Worries for World Leaders

IMF, World Bank Push for Solutions; Turmoil in Haiti
By BOB DAVIS and DOUGLAS BELKIN

April 14, 2008; Page A1

WASHINGTON -- Finance ministers gathered this weekend to grapple with the global financial crisis also struggled with a problem that has plagued the world periodically since before the time of the Pharaohs: food shortages.

Surging commodity prices have pushed up global food prices 83% in the past three years, according to the World Bank -- putting huge stress on some of the world's poorest nations. Even as the ministers met, Haiti's Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis was resigning after a week in which that tiny country's capital was racked by rioting over higher prices for staples like rice and beans.

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83% over the past three years? Not sure how the low single digit inflation values that are put out by government agencies jive with this.