By Wendell Roelf
SOMERSET WEST (Reuters) - South Africa's food prices will rise gradually from 2011 partly as the economic recovery gains pace, increasing the likelihood of more protests, the Agricultural Business Chamber said on Wednesday.
Households, especially in the lower-income level, spend a large chunk of their income on food and higher food prices in recent years contributed to millions of people's inability to escape poverty, more than 16 years after the end of apartheid.
John Purchase, chief executive of the chamber said any spike in food prices could signal increased activism and possible strikes by powerful labour federation Cosatu.
"While food prices are still coming down at the moment... it is going to bottom out probably within the next six months or so," he said on the sidelines of an agriculture conference.
"There will be gradual increases in food prices, we believe, again from 2011. How big that rise is, is very difficult to predict," Purchase added.
