“It’s a cultural thing,” said Hervé Kone, director of a group that promotes development, social justice and human rights in Burkina Faso. “When the kids are hungry, they go to their mother, not their father. And when there is less food, women are the first to eat less.”

A recent study by the aid group Catholic Relief Services found that many people in Burkina Faso are now spending 75 per cent or more of their income on food, leaving little for other basic needs.

Pregnant women and young mothers are forgoing medical care. More women are turning to prostitution to pay for food. And more families are pulling children — especially girls — out of school, unable to afford fees and clothes.

But perhaps the most pervasive effect of the growing global crisis is the ache in the stomachs of millions of poor women such as Fanta Lingani.

Such sacrifices led to food riots in February in Ouagadougou, the capital, and towns across the country. Hundreds of people were arrested after they set fires and smashed government buildings to protest rising prices. But for Lingani, the struggle is quieter, and harder by the day, and it starts before the sun comes up.