Production shortfalls in rice-exporting countries have led to soaring prices and a scramble for the staple grain, the Financial Timesreports.

Rice prices jumped 30 percent to an all-time high on Thursday, raising fears of fresh outbreaks of social unrest across Asia where the grain is a staple food for more than 2.5 billion people.The increase came after Egypt, a leading exporter, imposed a formal ban on selling rice abroad to keep local prices down, and the Philippines announced plans for a major purchase of the grain in the international market to boost supplies. Global rice stocks are at their lowest since 1976. …These [Egyptian, Vietnamese, Indian and Cambodian] foreign sales restrictions have removed about a third of the rice traded in the international market.

The shortage could lead to unrest in Asia as the staple gets scarce.

“I have no idea how importing countries will get rice,” said Chookiat Ophaswongse, president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association. He forecast that prices would rise further.

The Philippines is the world’s largest rice buyer, and has been trying to purchase 500,000 metric tons. It received offers for only two thirds of its requests in recent months, and the average price for orders to be delivered between March and April was nearly 50 percent higher than January’s prices. On Thursday, the government confirmed it would tap emergency stocks maintained by Vietnam and Thailand.

Meanwhile, Philippine fast-food restaurants are cutting their rice servings in half. Chains such as Chowking and McDonald’s are deciding how best to implement the measure, while the agriculture department is promoting corn as an alternative. For 80 percent of Filipinos, rice is an essential staple, eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

If unchecked, climbing prices could lead to social unrest, an eventuality Indonesian officials are wary of. Soaring beef, tofu, tempeh, rice and cooking oil prices have led to large protests and are fueling fears that the government could be destabilized. Food-related government upheavals occurred there in 1965 and 1998.

Global grain supplies are at multi-decade lows. As drought and other harmful weather patterns become even more severe and more widespread and crops fail, consumers from the Philippines to Palembang to Philadelphia will see skyrocketing prices and, startlingly, empty shelves. Future food prices will cause social unrest in a number of countries, and the West, wealthy but vulnerable, will not be immune. Unrest, violence and upheaval in Asia are just the leading edge of a global food crisis.