Food Crisis Rippling Out Like a “Tsunami” - CommonDreams.org

Food Crisis Rippling Out Like a “Tsunami” - CommonDreams.org: "UNITED NATIONS - “A rolling tsunami of social unrest is underway as we speak — hungry people are desperate people capable of taking desperate actions. This tsunami is rapidly enveloping the global South, and it won’t take much longer before it knocks at the door of the global North,” warned Vicente Garcia-Delgado, the U.N. representative for CIVICUS, the world alliance for citizen participation.

At a forum on the world food crisis held at the United Nations Friday, civil society groups stressed that over 800 million people are now at risk of starvation, while 100 million have joined the ranks of the extremely poor in just the last few months and are now living on less than a dollar a day.

The food price index of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation rose by 9 percent in 2006 and 23 percent in 2007. As of March this year, wheat and maize prices were 130 and 30 percent higher than a year earlier. Rice prices have more than doubled since late January."

I have seen prices here in the United States rise dramatically over the last year or two. Here, we have food pantries serving record numbers of people, and we are the rich superpower. I cannot imagine how life is in the "third world" countries right now with such significant price increases.