Even in a “good” year , around one million of the 12.8 million people who live in Burkina Faso do not get enough to eat every year, mostly due to poverty.

This year, grain prices are rising sharply, putting more at risk.

Producers are accused of hoarding and merchants of price gouging. Despite government predictions of a national surplus overall, shortfalls are reported in key production areas – and internal markets and exports mean there may be shortages.

The price of millet, a staple product in Burkina, is up 5 percent, sorghum by 11 percent and maize by 23 percent compared to average prices for November, according to Phillipe Ki, Burkina Faso coordinator of Afrique Verte, an NGO monitoring grain prices in the Sahel, which will release a full study soon.

"This is atypical. In general prices start increasing during the lean period [August to September] and decrease after the harvest", Ki said.

Traders interviewed by IRIN at Sankariare market in Ouagadougou, one of the key cereal markets in the country, said prices are already up by 40 percent or more compared to the same time last year.

A 100 kg sack of maize and millet costs 13,000 CFA francs (US$26), while a sack of beans costs 19,000 CFA francs (US$38). Last year maize cost 7,500 CFA francs ($US15) and millet and beans 10,000 CFA francs (US$20), the traders said.

"Prices are above average due to the deficit in rains in the traditional cereal production areas", Mathieu Sawadogo, a cereal dealer at Sankariare market in Ouagadougou said.

Sawadogo said he has been purchasing cereals from Bobo-Dioulasso, Banfora and Hounde in Burkina Faso's fertile southern area for 15 years, but this year farmers are reluctant to sell what they have harvested as they see other producers have had a bad year.

"The current prices are those of August because the farmers are afraid to sell their production and fall short of food later for their own use," Sawadogo told IRIN.

According to a report released last week by the Burkina Faso government, overall production in the country in 2007 was 3,736,000 tonnes, suggesting a a surplus of 777,200 tonnes, 8 percent more than the average of the last five years. However according to the report, only 19 of 45 provinces in Burkina Faso saw cereal production increase while 26 others experienced a reduction.

The survey was nationwide and sampled 4,442 households and 38,642 plots of land.

The disparities are blamed on heavy floods and droughts which affected provinces especially in the south where most of the country's food production usually comes from.

"Saying that there is a surplus does not mean in all villages and provinces of the country there will be food for every body," the Minister of Agriculture, Water and Fisheries, Salif Diallo said on Burkina Faso national radio on Sunday.

Alain Galbone, prefect of Bama province, an area hard-hit first by floods, then by drought this year, and where a kilo of maize costs 105 CFA francs (US$0.20) compared to 60 CFA francs ($US0.12) at this time last year said: "People want to keep the little they have instead of selling it".

"There is little grain in the markets right now because people had really got little to harvest. Some had nothing to harvest," Galbone said, adding that the most vulnerable people, including those among the thousands who lost their homes during the floods, are being registered for assistance.

Agriculture Minister Diallo said in provinces with a "serious" deficit (Ngourma, Zoumweogo, Bulkiemde, Ganzourgou, Zandoma, Koulpeologo, Sanmantinga, Bazeiga, Kompiemga, Bam, Kouritenga, Nahouri, Kadiogo), the government will start using national security and emergency intervention stocks to bring back prices back to "acceptable" levels.

Diallo also pledged that food would be made available at nominal cost to the most vulnerable people.