Meeting with European Union officials, Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP), said food costs were rising due to a combination of soaring oil and energy prices, the effects of climate change, growing demand from countries such as India and China, and use of crops to produce biofuels.
"Higher food prices will increase social unrest in a number of countries which are sensitive to inflationary pressures and are import-dependent," she said. "We will see a repeat of the riots we have already reported on the streets, such as we have seen in Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Senegal." The WFP is currently drawing up a list of 30 countries which it believes are "most vulnerable" to the current food inflation crisis.
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