The Food and Agriculture Organization food-price index rose to a record high in February 2011, topping the previous all-time high set in June 2008, following unexpected shortfalls in major cereals owing to bad weather in 2010. Food riots and protests threatened Governments as well as social stability in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America and the Caribbean. Massive public protests in response to higher food prices erupted in very diverse countries, such as Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Guinea, Haiti, Indonesia, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, Peru, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen (Baker, 2008, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, International Fund for Agricultural Development and World Food Programme, 2008). The number of people in need of emergency food aid in low-income food-deficit countries also increased. According to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network of the United States Agency for International Development, an estimated 2.7 million people in Niger were likely to be highly or extremely food insecure in 2010 and an additional 5.1 million people were at risk of moderate food insecurity. Altogether about 60 per cent of the population would face food shortages.