The question which countries are next up for severe turmoil is currently becoming rather important. Given that oil and gas is getting more expensive without doubt and we are at the beginning of a worldwide food distribution crisis already, the countries where families are spending most on food already are getting to get hit the hardest. I only found statistics on how much of family income is spent on food for 2008 (links to newer data welcome!). Here is the list of those where the food expenditure are over 30% back then sorted by the percentage:.
It certainly has gone worse in the meantime for most of these (maybe with the exception of former Yugoslavia). India has been in the grip of an onion price crisis for several weeks now, Australias harvest is likely to be bad, Russia is beginning to sell wheat from its government reserves to stabilize prices that shot up due to the bad harvest from last summer, China is facing a drought, and on and on… Things are not getting better in the next months.
As Stratfor put it so precisely in a recent report on the limited extend of the actual grain reserves in Egypt:
As history has shown repeatedly, nothing is as dangerous to social stability in general or governments in particular as food shortages. People can and do riot about ideology or politics, but people must riot about food because, simply put, they can die if they do not.