Rice Rationing?

Global warming nonsense? In the 80s when rice growers, particularly in California, began to change their crops, what was the main reason?

Texas and Louisiana grows most of the rice for the world. Since I live close to Winnie where they grow the stuff, (and I see it every damn day) I can tell you first hand there is no shortage here, nor is there shortage of fertilizer here or Louisiana for that matter. If there was a shortage of rice, it was during the hurricanes of 2005, but I don't recall that the hurricanes affected it.

There has been nothing but ideal conditions to grow the rice, and nothing has hampered it yet. Except the cost to transport it.

Looks to me like someone in the media has created an artificial shortage effectively scaring everyone.

Oh dear Lord! How is it that someone like myself who is admittedly shallow and vapid knows more about the worldwide rice shortage than the rest of you? Don't get me wrong, I still love big dicks, but I do occasionally pick up a newspaper or watch the news on television.

Rice is the primary food source for more than half the people in the world! Haitians are starving in the streets and getting sick because they are eating dirt. Why? Because there is no rice!

I know it's a stereotype; but the truth is many people of Asian, Indian, Mexican and Spanish heritage use rice as a basis of their diet. Just because you work with a Hindi girl who loves pizza doesn't mean that's what she was raised eating at home.

Do to a 6 year drought Australia's largest rice farm recently closed. They used to produce 98% of the countrys rice.

The collapse of Australia's rice production is one of several factors contributing to a doubling of rice prices in the last three months — increases that have led the world's largest exporters to restrict exports severely, spurred panicked hoarding in Hong Kong and the Philippines, and set off violent protests in countries including Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, Italy, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, the Philippines, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Yemen.

Ricegrowers' Association of Australia

New Green Revolution May Solve Rice Shortage in Asia

Price of rice prompts renewed anger in Haiti - Boston.com

Yep we have one of the worst droughts in history.
thank goodness we have had rain this season in most of the rice growing areas.
(Lord knows there was a wet season this year in the tropics.)
With the rain there should be a rice crop this season so suppies should increase and prices should drop.
Fingers crossed.

I can't imagine buying a 50 lb bag of rice. Yes, rice and beans are a staple in my diet, but I still have rice left over from the last time I bought a 10 lb bag of the stuff over a year ago.

The media over reacts. They survive on ratings. If there's a shortage of ratings they'll find some small anomaly in the regular day-to-day process of modern life and make it sound as if the sky is falling.

What they aren't talking about (which is very interesting) is why petroleum combustibles are going through the roof --- not just in the USA, but everywhere. Somehow they avoid talking about the fact the price of oil has little to do with OPEC but EVERYTHING to do with playing crap shoot in the commodities exchange markets. If crude oil were regulated under the same rules as public utilities, there would be little to complain about. However, don't plan on that ever happening. In Argentina AND Nevada I belong to an electrical cooperative. As a result, electricity is cheap. But EDUNUR, the electric power company that lights Buenos Aires is a private corporation and therefore electricity is relatively expensive. Electric cooperatives also exist small populated areas in the USA and Canada. Imagine how cheap gasoline/diesel would be if I could belong to a petroleum cooperative? But no. Somehow the concept is illegal.

We're just sheep led by über petrol corporations who have us securely by the nuts (even in your female).

Indeed.

Most non media sources I've looked at suggest there is no shortage of either rice or speculation. The annual rice crop was perhaps the largest ever.

Live from Los Angeles: Rice Shortage: Real or Imagined?
Pajamas Media » Is the Rice Shortage Real? (sorry blog)
Not a grain of truth to talk of shortage | Opinion | eastvalleytribune.com

and so on ...

Read the mainstream media however, and one finds stories of the lowest stocks for decades and that nations are on the verge of food riots.

Food riots fear after rice price its a high | Environment | The Observer

In the west, restrictions are really intended to dissuade commercial users from panic bulk buying in a bid to avoid future rises (based on the fear that there's an actual major shortage) - a 'run on the bank' knee jerk reaction. It was estimated by one source that this year global demand would outstrip supply by 1%. Hardly catastrophic.

David Coia, the spokesman for the growers’ group USA Rice Federation, has told every news organization that’s asked, “There is no rice shortage in the U.S.”

But as well all know, there's nothing like rumours of a ('panic' inducing) massive shortage as a means to camouflage an (arguably) overdue price hike. Prices are rising globally and the sad reality is that while US consumers can afford it (or go without), those of many other nations cannot.

These recent steep rises apply not only to rice of course. Rice is trading at around 125% of its price a year ago, combined with a weak US$ it shouldn't surprise anyone (with at least half a brain) that commodity prices are up across the board. It would seem that there's a world shortage of veggies too ...

The truth of the situation is probably somewhere in between. Some localised shortages, but in with increasingly globalised trading these too easily escalate into crises. The ironic end result being a self fulfilling prophecy - unnecessary stockpiling creates the very shortage it's aimed at mitigating. Effect preceding cause.

Then the truth is realised - the market is flooded and prices plummet. Shrewd traders make a killing, but rice farmers and sellers go bust and next season there really is a shortage ...

EMERGING MARKETS REPORT
India may impose a ban on trading in food futures


By Polya Lesova, MarketWatch
Last update: 4:01 p.m. EDT May 5, 2008





NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- India is reportedly considering a ban on futures trading in food commodities, as the government struggles to curb soaring inflation and the rising cost of food has become a major international concern.
India's finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said Monday that he was considering a blanket ban on trading in food futures, according to a report in The Financial Times.
Chidambaram said that governments across Asia share his worries over speculation in the commodities markets, the FT reported.
India is "facing a very grave crisis on the food front," the minister said on the sidelines of the Asian Development Bank's annual meeting in Madrid, according to the FT.



India has already banned futures trading in rice and wheat. The latest remarks from India's finance minister come as his government confronts growing pressure at home to curb rising inflation.
On Friday, official data showed that India's inflation hit a 42-month high of 7.57% in the week ending April 19.
"It's indicative of the fact that there's a real issue here and governments are scrambling to find some kind of solution," said Cameron Brandt, global markets analyst at EPFR Global, about India's idea to ban trading in food futures.
"I don't think it's a great idea especially given that their food futures market is fairly modest," Brandt said. "If you take that away, you lose pretty important market signals. One thing the food futures market is telling us is plant more food."
Soaring prices for agricultural commodities, including rice, wheat, corn, and soybeans, have stirred popular discontent and demonstrations around the world. The United Nations World Food Program has said that high food prices are creating "a silent tsunami" threatening to plunge more than 100 million people on every continent into hunger.
Divya Reddy, an analyst at the Eurasia Group, said that banning futures trading won't curb soaring food prices.
The correlation between commodities trading speculation and rising food prices is "weak," Reddy said. Rather, the main drivers for food prices are poor harvests and growing demand.
"It's going to be more of a political gesture to show the public that they're taking measures," Reddy said. "India's in the middle of an election season, so the government wants to seem [like] they are doing as much as they can to address the issue."
India, which will hold parliamentary elections next year, has taken a number of measures in response to soaring food prices. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government has eliminated import tariffs on several commodities, including wheat, wheat flour and palm oil. It has also raised the minimum rice export tax in phases after initially banning all rice exports in October 2007. India has also tried to crack down on hoarding food.
"If the government creates such policy uncertainty that they can intervene whenever they want to, the incentive to invest will be reduced."
— Arpitha Bykere, RGE Monitor
"The problem is that it [India] has tried different methods to control inflation," said Arpitha Bykere, an analyst at RGE Monitor. "Its options are decreasing."
However, banning futures trading only leads to policy uncertainty for both farmers and investors in commodities, she said.
"If the government creates such policy uncertainty that they can intervene whenever they want to [in the markets], the incentive to invest will be reduced," Bykere said. "This basically harms investor sentiment."
India's main commodity exchanges -- National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX) and Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX) - have grown rapidly since they were established in 2003, according to the Eurasia Group. However, the de-listing of some commodities from the exchanges last year has caused a fall in agricultural futures trading. In 2004, agriculture made up almost 70% of total trade in India's commodity exchanges, but it has now dropped to less than 25%, with bullion and metals accounting for the rest, according to the Eurasia Group.
Services have driven India's impressive economic growth in recent years, even though they employ less than a third of the labor force. About two-thirds of India's 1.1 billion people depend on rural employment for their living. Rice, wheat, oilseed, cotton, tea, and sugarcane are among the country's main agricultural products.
"India's agriculture is hugely neglected," Bykere said. "Sixty percent of the population is employed by agriculture, but investment in agriculture has decreased over the past few years. If the country wants to grow, it has to improve rural infrastructure and agriculture investment."

that's ridiculous. everybody knows we don't need farmland, rice and wheat fall from the sky!!! duhh

I don't think there's a shortage in the US but, in alot of asian country's there is which has been compounded by the cyclone in Myanmar (Burma)

I'm from Beaumont cowboy.