U.N. sees more hunger, unrest over food inflation

By Darren Ennis

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Record high food prices and resulting inflation are set to continue until at least 2010, fuelling a "new hunger" across the globe and anarchy on the streets of poorer nations, a top U.N. official said.

Josette Sheeran, executive director of the United Nations' World Food Programme, said the world's economy "has now entered a perfect storm for the world's hungry" caused by high oil and food prices and low food stocks.

"Our assessment is that the current level will continue for the next few years ... in fact rise in 2008, 2009 and probably at least until 2010," she said on a visit to Brussels on Thursday where she met European Union officials.

Her visit came on a day that oil, gold and copper surged to record highs as investors fleeing a weak dollar piled into commodities.

Sheeran said food prices 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.

"This is leading to a new face of hunger in the world, what we call the newly hungry. These are people who have money, but have been priced out of being able to buy food," she said.

"Higher food prices will increase social unrest in a number of countries which are sensitive to inflationary pressures and are import-dependent. 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."