Food distribution line. Photo: L. Boscardi/UNHCR

The UN is preparing plans to ration its food aid to people in need if new donations don't provide more money soon, according to an article in the Financial Times this week. Rising global food prices are putting serious pressures on the World Food Program (WFP)'s budget, to the tune of several million dollars each week.

"The WFP crisis talks come as the body sees the emergence of a "new area of hunger" in developing countries where even middle-class, urban people are being "priced out of the food market" because of rising food prices.

The warning suggests that the price jump in agricultural commodities - such as wheat, corn, rice and soyabeans - is having a wider impact than thought, hitting countries that have previously largely escaped hunger."

It is not just the UN that will have to ration its food aid. Countries like Egypt and Pakistan are reinstating or strengthening rationing systems for the first time in decades. Unfortunately, the crisis will be getting worse in the short term. According to the US Department of Agriculture "high agricultural commodities prices [will] continue for at least the next two to three years."