Yaounde, Cameroon Africa. January 2011. (Cameroon News) - Analysts feel that the increasing food prices could be a source of concern to African countries which rely heavily on food imports.

Food and commodity prices which have been indicating a sharp rise since the past copuple of months are causing increasing concerns among experts as they feel that this could cause inflation, protectionism and political unrest especially among emerging and under developed economies who are the worst affected.

World leaders and policy makers have made it a core part of their agenda to do whatever is necessary to bring this increase under control.

The United Nations’ food agency (FAO) said on Wednesday that food prices had hit their biggest ever high last month, which was recorded to be higher than the time when it had created political unrest in countries like Cameroon, Egypt and Haiti.

Experts feel that there is a similar risk again if things do not come under control soon.
In Asia, official information and forecasts done by experts both indicate the same observations and apprehensions pertaining to inflationary concerns.

Price of chilli has increased by around five times in Thailand in the last year and leaders are increasingly advising their people to start cultivating their own vegetables so that they may be less affected by the price changes.

Ever increasing food prices have been known to be the causative factor behind a lot of riots and unrest especially in developing and under developed economies who face the brunt of the issue and where food is one of the primary items in the household budget.

Experts voice the opinion that the worst affected are going to be the African and Caribbean economies who need to rely excessively of food imports to feed their starving millions.

The increasing food prices are forcing many governments to putting bans on exports and acquiring foreign-owned farmland.

Countries like Cameroon and Nigeria fall into this bracket and people in the coming future may need to shell out quite some amount of cash on food following which the amount of disposable cash available for other purchases which in turn is again bad news for the people who live there.