UN: Food prices hit record high in February

[March 03, 2011]  ROME (AP) -- A U.N. food agency says that global food prices reached new highs in February and warns that oil price spikes could provoke further increases.

Skyrocketing food prices have been among the triggers for protests in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere and raised fears of a repeat of the food price crises in 2007 and 2008. Global oil prices have spiked on concerns about the potential impact of supply disruptions from Libya.

The Food and Agriculture Organization said in a statement Thursday that its food price index was up 2.2 percent last month, the highest in real and nominal terms since the agency started monitoring prices in 1990.

It was also the eighth consecutive month that food prices had risen. In January, the index had already registered a peak.

[Associated Press]

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