Food Riots And Other Unrest 2013

This little tidbit from Slashdot. It seems there's a paper out that predicts some severe food rioting next year in the fall. Seems that all this extreme weather has thrown agriculture for a loop and now developing nations are going to feel the brunt of it. Here is a link to the actual study.

From the abstract:

"We identify a specific food price threshold above which protests become likely. These observations suggest that protests may reflect not only long-standing political failings of governments,but also the sudden desperate straits of vulnerable populations. If food prices remain high, there is likely to be persistent and increasing global social disruption."

We in the wealthy nations spend about 15% of our income on food while the rest of the world spends about 80% of theirs. If food prices go up too much, to fast, it's easy to see how things could quickly get out of hand.

But it's not like we didn't already know this stuff back in the '60s.