World food prices are rising faster than they have for more than 30 years, putting hundreds of millions of vulnerable people at increased risk of hunger and malnutrition, food experts warn.

"The world food system is in trouble. The situation has not been this much concern for 15 years", Joachim von Braun, head of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), cautions in Christian Science Monitor.

The end of the cheap food era is likely to see more people "pushed over the edge" according to Peter Smerdon, public affairs officer for the World Food Programme (WFP) in Nairobi. And it is developing nations, especially net food importers, which will be hit the hardest, according to Kenya's Business Daily newspaper.

Unbalanced income growth, climate change, high energy prices, globalisation and urbanisation, all play their part in this rise in demand and cost, according to The East African newspaper.

The paper pays particular attention to recent shifts in global food production. Spurred on by an increase in prosperous consumers, food production is moving from staple crops to processed foods and high-value agricultural products such as vegetables, fruits, meat and dairy products.

Christian Science Monitor also picks up on this point. The economic booms in countries like India and China have boosted demand for meat, it says. But the resulting increase in grain use to feed livestock means more potential food is being diverted away from the hungry.

The Monitor also warns of the dangers of turning too much food into fuel. If the current growth in crop use for biofuel production is sustained corn prices look set to increase by 26 percent by 2020, and the price of oilseeds, such as soybean and sunflower, by 18 percent.

"The hotspots of food risks will be where high prices combine with shocks from the weather or political crises", the IFPRI's von Braun says. "These are recipes for disaster."

Some of these effects are already being felt around the world. Record wheat prices have led to riots in Morocco, India and Mexico. Reuters reported this week that consumers in Bangladesh were also being hit hard by dramatic increases in the cost of basic foods.

Urgent action is needed to help vulnerable people cope with the rising cost of meals. To a family in Bangladesh, for example, living on $5 a day and spending $3 of that on food, the 50 percent rise in food prices the world has seen recently takes nearly 30 percent out of the family budget.

Some positive signs do come from Malawi however, which, after years of food insecurity, now sells more corn to the WFP and the United Nations than any other country in southern Africa.

The country experienced record-breaking corn harvests in 2006 and 2007, according to government crop estimates. The International Herald Tribune notes that government fertiliser subsidies have proved hugely successful in changing the country's fortunes.

But as we look ahead to 2008, Christian Science Monitor notes that all the signs are that food prices will go on rising this year, and for the foreseeable future.

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