High Food Prices and Political Unrest

I’ve blogged on this topic a few times now (Egypt and the root causes of the unrest and The 25 Countries Whose Governments Could Get Crushed By Food Price Inflation) and I find the argument that the underlying problem that triggered the Arab Spring was economic in nature, a plausable and compelling one. The graphic below from the Conversable Economist looks at the correlation between rising food prices and subsequent “food riots” around the developing world since 2004. It makes for interesting viewing. Click here for a larger version.

“Of course, food prices aren’t the only factor in causing such disruptions, but the fact that such riots and disruptions essentially vanished in 2009 and 2010, in the time period between the two price spikes, is nonetheless striking.”