Rice Riots

It’s like waking up in “Solyent Green,” the grind-em-up, eco-disaster and food-horror movie from the '70s, which starred Charlton Heston. Food was in short supply--steaks cost $29 a pound (that would be like $100 a pound today), and well...you get the picture.

Worldwide, the cost of foodstuffs has gone through the roof. The cost of rice is up 140 percent since January of this year (according to an MSNBC report April 23), and that is on top of a price increase of around 100 percent last year. Sam’s Club is rationing rice--limiting purchases to four 20-pound bags of rice per customer. Shelves at Wal-Mart and Costco are being stripped bare of rice by customers, and these and other retailers are considering restrictions as well. [There was even a run on matzos, a Jewish traditional cracker used in celebrating Passover, which recently depleted stocks in stores.]

In some Third World countries, there is rioting in the streets because the poor cannot afford food. A few countries have stopped exporting rice and some other foods and have even implemented price controls and price freezes. The situation with corn and wheat is bad as well, and corn affects a whole host of related foods that contain corn syrup--ranging from canned good to baked goods to ice cream.

Rice and corn make up the main dietary staples of the poor around the globe. Historically, there have been no foods that are cheaper or more widely available. And from Malayan and African rice to Mexican tortillas, the stomachs of the poor are running on empty.

Americans may have have noticed price increases at grocery stores, and perhaps those government checks due out soon will help. But the full impact of these price increases has not yet been passed on to the consumer. The situation for restaurants is getting dicey, as menu prices try to stay neutral. But with these huge price jumps, higher prices all around seem inevitable. Factor in the higher cost of gasoline for food transport--and this is a disaster in the making.

What’s causing all this? It’s a complex issue, but here are a few key factors:
1) First off, increasing demand in China, India and other developing countries is a factor, especially as peasants give up their farms and move to the cities, where they must buy from markets and grocery stores, instead of living off of the land. And the wealthy in these countries are eating considerable amounts of beef for the first time--and cattle feed requires corn and grain crops.
2) There is less supply. In China, about 50 percent of rice paddies have gone away, as land has been converted to industrial use and development. The corn situation has been aggravated by the rush to ethanol and bio-fuels--which have snatched up about 25 percent of all available corn this year and removed it entirely from the food chain. In Australia, there is a 10-year drought going on, which has greatly reduced food crops and exports [global warming at work]. Africa is experiencing an extreme drought as well, that reduces the amount of arable land every year.
3) Investors, especially those involved in futures and derivatives, are driving up prices on all commodities. Commodities have become especially appealing to investors, since the tech and real estate bubbles have burst. The world is awash in investment money, which is chasing fewer and fewer good opportunities these days--so much so, that some analysts are predicting that a similar bubble for commodities is in the making.
4) General instability in the economy--especially in the United States, and including the weakness of the dollar--is having a global impact. Weaknesses in the banking and mortgage communities, after the sub-prime collapse, have shattered confidence, which must be rebuilt. Run-away inflation in the '70s--when oil prices hit explosively-high price levels--caused people to “buy now”--before prices went even higher, and to hoard. A repeat of that scenario would considerably exacerbate the situation, driving food prices even higher.

Where will it all end? Clearly, the wealthy in developed countries cannot strip the world of corn to make fuel so they can drive around their expensive automobiles, while leaving the poor to starve. Governments need to step in and work together to mediate the situation, seeing that
food takes priority over fuel, and that food stores--rice, corn and wheat--are grown in sufficient supply and get delivered to the desperate and needy, at prices they can afford.

--Diva

Comments

[Ron KNoth]

Solyent Green Quotes: Life Imitates Art, if you can call it art", Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson and Leigh Taylor Young meet, fall in love, and die

"Why, in my day, you could buy meat anywhere! Eggs they had, real butter! Fresh lettuce in the stores."

"Would you believe bodyguards are buying strawberries for 150 D's a jar?"

"It's people. Soylent Green is made out of people. They're making our food out of people. Next thing they'll be breeding us like cattle for food. You've gotta tell them. You've gotta tell them! You tell everybody. Listen to me, Hatcher. You've gotta tell them! Soylent Green is people! We've gotta stop them somehow!"

Det. Thorn: "I know, I know. When you were young, people were better."

Sol: "Aw, nuts. People were always rotten. But the world 'was' beautiful."