World food prices are likely to rise in the coming months in the
wake of record-breaking temperatures and drought in the major
maize and soybean producing regions of the United States,
economists say. It would be the third spike in food prices in
the past five years. Previous hikes - during 2007 and 2008, and
again in 2010 and 2011 - triggered riots and social instability
in dozens of countries around the world. Whether rising food
prices will again trigger unrest is unclear, especially since
different crops are affected. Despite early predictions of a
record maize crop, estimates have plummeted after a string of
record-high temperature days and dry conditions stretching
across the farm states of the U.S. Midwest. “We need rain, and
it doesn’t look like we’re going to get it,” says Iowa State
University economist Dermot Hayes. A farm hand harvests potatoes
a month early at King's Hill Farm at Mineral Point, Wisconsin,
July 30, 2012. The potato yield is about one fifth of the
expected yield, but is the farm's