The woman is not scavenging - she is paying for leftovers that in better times people fed to their sheep and cows. She said her household of 14 people gave up fresh bread a month ago as the price of this Afghan staple spiraled out of reach.

Rising global food prices have hit few places as hard as Afghanistan. The cost of wheat flour has shot up 75 per cent in three months, fueling anger against the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai. In the volatile south, officials fear it could boost recruitment for the Taleban insurgency.

'Karzai is the king and this is my life,' wailed the Pashtun woman who declined to give her name because of her conservative social code. Her spindly nine-year-old son, Abdul Rahman, chewed on a crust. 'Since the Americans came here, nothing is cheap,' she said.

The United Nations World Food Programme, or WFP, warns that the poorest in Afghanistan face 'a very dire situation' and that deaths from malnutrition are likely to increase. Protests have broken out in at least one city. Even middle-income professionals are struggling to get by.

WFP's director for Asia, Anthony Banbury, said the recent 75 per cent hike in the price of wheat followed a 60 per cent increase in 2007.

'People are not dying of starvation, per se, but that's very rare these days. Usually people die from diseases they never should have died from but their bodies are weakened by hunger,' he said.

Two of the poorest provinces, Ghor and Badghis, have suffered the double impact of the global food crisis and a drought that wiped out 70 per cent of last year's crop, said Mary Kate MacIsaac of the aid group World Vision.

'If they did have assets, they have been forced to sell them off,' Ms MacIsaac said, noting the price of sheep had dropped by over half as people rushed to sell livestock. 'People are desperate and living in greater fear of what's to come if this year's crop fails.'

2008 harvest would be worse
Reliable statistics are hard to come by, but Commerce Minister Amin Farhang estimated that in 2007 Afghanistan produced 1.3 million tons less grain than the 6.6 million tons it requires each year.

Deputy Agriculture Minister Pir Mohammad Azizi said initial signs were that the 2008 harvest would be worse because of insufficient rains in the early spring.

Afghanistan is reliant on aid and imports to help fill its food deficit, so it is particularly vulnerable to increased international prices driven by growing demand from China and India and the use of grain to make bio-fuel.

The main source of Afghan food imports, Pakistan, is suffering its own wheat shortages and has imposed stiff controls on exports to Afghanistan, forcing prices higher.

Traders at Mandawi market, the main centre for flour sellers in Kabul, blame ruthless businessmen for capitalising on the shortages.

They look back with some nostalgia on the Soviet-backed communist regime of the 1980s.

'In the past we had shortages but there were silos. The government had several months supply to cope with a food crisis. Now the government can't even cope for a day,' said flour seller Sayed Hassan Agha, 64.

With elections due next year and its popularity at rock bottom, the food crisis has political and security repercussions for Karzai's government.

'There are lots of young men who are jobless, they have no income in their families and this economic situation makes them join the Taleban,' said Niaz Mohammad Sarhadi, chief of Zhari district, near the main southern city of Kandahar.

For the first time since the fall of the Islamist regime six years ago, the WFP has begun food distributions in Afghan cities, rather than just to rural areas.

That, and a government plan to use US$50 million (S$68 million) to buy flour for government employees and the poor, has helped reduce the price of a 50kg sack of flour imported from Pakistan from US$50 to US$40 this week, Kabul traders say.

The commerce minister predicted that harvest prices would drop further after May. -- AP

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