Food prices cause social unrest

Food prices (black line) and food riots and the Arab Spring (red lines)

The timing of violent protests in North Africa and the Middle East in 2011 as well as earlier riots in 2008 coincides with large peaks in global food prices.

If food prices remain high, there is likely to be persistent and increasing global social disruption.

http://necsi.edu/research/social/foodcrises.html

The food price threshold at which increased social unrest occurs may be passed again soon:

Food prices (blue) and food price model (red) including projected increases in coming months. The social unrest threshold, corrected for inflation (purple dashed line) is a level of food prices that is likely to cause food riots of impoverished populations and social disruption. 

http://necsi.edu/research/social/foodprices/briefing/