Rising freight rates add to agflation worries

Spiraling shipping costs for commodities threaten to drive food inflation even higher as nations from Asia to the Middle East and Africa scramble for supplies, stung by grain prices that have more than doubled in less than a year.

Even if the jump in freight costs proves temporary as new vessels flow into the shipping industry, any add-on costs to food prices that are already at records could stoke fears of more instability in the Middle East and a rerun of 2008's food riots.

Global food prices, measured by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, have already hit record highs in January (February), a problem that will worsen as freight costs feed into the prices people pay for bread and meat in supermarkets.