Posted on 04/16/2008 10:22:41 PM PDT by fishhound
DENILIQUIN, Australia: Lindsay Renwick, the mayor of this dusty southern Australian town, remembers the constant whir of the rice mill. "It was our little heartbeat out there, tickety-tick-tickety," he said, imitating the giant fans that dried the rice, "and now it has stopped."
The Deniliquin mill, the largest rice mill in the Southern Hemisphere, once processed enough grain to satisfy the daily needs of 20 million people. But six long years of drought have taken a toll, reducing Australia's rice crop by 98 percent and leading to the mothballing of the mill last December.
Ten thousand miles separate the mill's hushed rows of oversized silos and sheds — beige, gray and now empty — from the riotous streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, but a widening global crisis unites them.
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.
Drought affects every agricultural industry based here, not just rice — from sheepherding, the other mainstay in this dusty land, to the cultivation of wine grapes, the fastest-growing crop here, with that expansion often coming at the expense of rice.
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
ping
Wow, I didn’t know there was this much of a shortage. Interesting article.
seems more like free markets deciding not climate. Grapes were more profitable than rice.
Good news for the folks in Colusa, Yolo, and Sacramento counties, in California’s rice belt.
No, rice is grown in different area. However, it doesn’t make much sense to grow rice here when it uses such a high amount of irrigation. We should just import rice.
I think the article is deceptive.
Do you know if there a specifically Californian rice?
Thanks
I don’t mean “fried” either...LOL
The way that are talking about it in the news makes one wonder where but from the US can countries import so much?
Rice IS water. No water, no rice. You may have noted that at least 3 major Asian rice-growing nations have either barred rice exports outright, or suspended them indefinitely.
The leading rice expert in the US, chap named Milo Hamilton (spent 12 yrs as the lead buyer for Uncle Ben, helped write the Rough Rice contract on the Chicago Board of Trade) considers that rice has a definite shot at $50/cwt within the year (depends on how the N. Hemisphere new crop turns out) and a possible shot at $70/cwt.
Front month rice is trading now at $22.xx/cwt. Think about it. Think about the food riots that will ensue in Asia if rice trades above $30-35/cwt.
THIS is a bull mkt, m'friend. Wheat? Hah! Corn? Fuggedabouddit.
Thanks.
I try to buy American and we produce so many regional items that I like it when I find new things.
If you and your family use ANY amount of rice in your meals, I should strongly consider buying a 10-lb sack of it right quick. Store it anywhere you like, as long as the place is high and dry. Use it as/when you will. Suggest putting it into X number of used quart pickle jars (well cleaned of course) -- it'll keep forever in those, if they're tightly closed.
N.B. just saw a very good grade of Basmati (far better than Uncle Ben's, just FYI) 10-lb sack at $11.99 retail. Unless there is a simply fantastic crop this year, worldwide, the same sack will cost at minimum 50% more by autumn.
I believe there will be many more soybean acres planted this year, due to futures contracts already made (by the producers, and at the expense of corn acres)...but we are having a late start to the planting season pretty much all over the Midwest due to cold temps and moisture.
If there are already problems with rice, a weather issue with corn or soybeans could really create some interesting times.
The USDA planting intentions report of 31 March indicated farmers' **intentions** to plant way more bean acreage at the expense of cotton and corn acreage. Everyone knows this, but there's a kicker that will likely change the game, this year.
Bean/corn acreage is almost entirely fungible, that is, you can usually grow either crop in the same acreage. Farmers will almost always go for the higher dollar yield from a given bunch of acres. And that poses a problem for the corn bulls.
On something like 90% of the corn/bean acreage in the US, given current price levels, the farmer will STILL make more net profit growing corn than beans. Therefore, what is likely to happen is that, as planting progresses, their stated ''intentions'' (and, make note, farmers lie to USDA about their intentions just the same as voters lie to pollsters...!) will change in favour of corn.
FWIW, I very much like buying OLD crop beans and selling NEW crop corn against them, in a ratio of 1 bean vs 2 corn.
The loser in the acreage game this year is a dead cinch to be cotton. If you believe -- as many do, given record snowpack in the N. Rockies and given extremely damp grounds in the upper Miss Valley -- that there's apt to be a major flood this year, what you want to do (aside from buying July Rice, which is a no-brainer on ANY dip, if we get one) is to get long Dec Cotton.
As a friend of mine on the old NY Cotton Exchange put it in 1973: ''If you can't see the ground, you can't plant the cotton, and if you can't plant it, you can't grow it, and you won't be selling it either, come October.''
1973, as you may recall, was the year of an enormous flood from the MO-IA border right down to the Gulf. Dec Cotton hit 90 cents that year, first time since the Civil War.
Good trading to you!
Like the bucket idea (but pickle jars will do for me... ;^). Best wishes and FReegards!
Resolution for Louisiana rice growers: quash weevil / Resolution for ...
Hopefully we can keep the bugs Out...;0)
I’ve several large, commercial-sized glass pickle jars, but I know if I dropped a full one and shattered glass and rice spread all over the cement floor, I’d probably cry! And I’m not a rice eater!
A number of AK growers are really sharp, too. They've taken the trouble to research and plant some super-premium grades of rice that the Japs absolutely love. Cha-ching $$. Won't be short of water this year, either -- their crops ought to be fantastic.
;^)
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