© Graham Turner/Guardian
As Middle East protests continue, the zigs and zags of oil prices are increasingly being followed by grain.
As Middle East protests continue, the zigs and zags of oil prices are increasingly being followed by grain.
The fate of Colonel Gaddafi in Libya and the price of a loaf of bread in Europe may not at first glance have an awful lot to do with one another. Similarly, not many people would link the fall of Hosni Mubarak with the cost of a bowl of rice in China.
But the revolts in Libya and Egypt are not just driving regime change in the Middle East, they may well add to the already intense pressure on global food prices.
The missing link is oil, which hit a has new two-and-a-half year high and today topped $108 (£67) a barrel due to the instability in Libya - which has Africa's biggest crude reserves. The price is moving closer to the record levels of more than $147 (£91), reached just before the financial crash in 2008.
That will be of little surprise to car drivers, who in recent decades have grown used to the correlation between peace and conflict in the Arab world and the troughs and peaks of the price they pay at the pumps.
But in the longer term, the impact may also be evident on the dinner table because the zigs and zags of oil prices are increasingly being followed by grain.
