There is some kind of rice crisis.
WSJ says
“
Sam’s Club, Costco Ration Rice Amid Hoarding Worries
By Gary McWilliams and Lauren Etter
Word Count: 474 | Companies Featured in This Article: Costco Wholesale, Wal-Mart Stores
Two large U.S. retailers slapped restrictions on purchases of bulk rice, bringing home shortfalls across the globe.
Costco Wholesale Corp., of Issaquah, Wash., and Sam’s Club, a unit of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., of Bentonville, Ark., limited consumer purchases of rice at their U.S. stores this week. Wal-Mart said while Sam’s has enough rice for customers, it would limit purchases to four 20-pound bags per visit “due to recent supply and demand trends.” Costco limited purchases in select stores.
Vietnam and India, two of Asia’s largest rice exporters, have placed temporary bans on some rice exports …
“
What? and why? I can’t seem to get a straight answer.
My capitalist/republican type husband says it’s because rice exporting countries are sitting on their rice and not selling it.
My uber-liberal sierra club tree-hugger friend says that she heard an infestation of insects or worms or something is the cause
Which is it? I’m going to take this moment to get to the bottom of it.
This article says that exporters are sitting on their bags of rice, hoping to get a higher price.
This is interesting, an article talking about food being an investment commodity.
some excerpts:
speculative investors are turning to fuels and the food sector as a “safe haven”, driving up prices in the process, say some food security activists.
This is the logical sequence from the transformation of food from a basic human need to an economic ”commodity”, they point out. This has made it a lot easier for investors and trading houses to regard agricultural food as a legitimate target for speculation, hoarding and market manipulation, especially though the futures market.
Critics point out that neoliberal policies promoting the opening up of the agricultural sector and the promotion of cash crops are now coming home to roost. Such policies have led to a loss in food self-sufficiency in many nations.
…Ironically, there is no shortage of food supply either at the global or at the domestic level — though food stocks have fallen. In fact, the International Grain Council (IGC) expects world wheat production to reach 645 million tonnes for the 2008/2009 season, an increase of 41 million tonnes over the previous season.
Global rice production meanwhile is expected to rise by 1.8 per cent — or 12 million tonnes — this year, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in a report last month. Paradoxically, international rice prices have soared 20 percent since January because of “limited supplies available for sale”, given the restrictions by key exporting nations.
Sounds like greedy grasping wall-street types are profiting on the world’s need to eat.
But where are the worms? Let me check…
Here’s something, but it’s from 2006
Okay, this is a story that is recent, and more than a half-million people in India are affected. But that’s superlocal, and in terms of the global situation, a drop in the bucket.
This article, I like best. The opening line is not very journalistic, because it is a statement of opinion, not fact. But I forgive the write, because a good analysis of the food sitation in the Phillipines is given with specific actions recommended.
So far, the internet has not heard about any startling bugs that are ruining rice. It is just greedy bastards that are manipulating the markets for gain.
Tree-hugger friend did say she was pretty unsure about the bug theory, not really remembering much. So, I guess I can reassure her that she can blame the neocons and republicans for the truly evil squeeze on rice to get more profit. Ecological disasters are not the issue at this moment.
