BRUSSELS - The European Union's executive sought on Friday to play down the risk of a repeat of 2008's food price crisis, saying current world grain stocks were much higher than then, but warned the era of cheap food had ended. Last week the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said its measure of food prices had hit its highest level since records began in 1990, topping levels seen in 2008 when price spikes sparked deadly riots in some countries. Rising food prices in North Africa and the Middle East are biting, with protests reaching Jordan on Friday following riots in Algeria and Tunisia, which have had many countries in the region cutting food prices and food taxes. The European Commission's farms spokesman Roger Waite said the FAO's food price index is weighted according to the export share of developing countries, and that global prices for wheat, maize and rice were all significantly below their 2008 peaks
