Posted on 04/23/2008 8:06:00 PM PDT by JACKRUSSELL
The global food crisis reached the United States yesterday as big retailers began to ration sales of rice in response to bulk purchases by customers alarmed by rocketing prices of staples.
Wal-Mart's cash and carry division, Sam's Club, announced it would sell a maximum of four bags of rice per person to prevent supplies from running short. Its decision followed sporadic caps placed on purchases of rice and flour by some store managers at a rival bulk chain, Costco, in parts of California.
The world price of rice has risen 68% since the start of 2008, but in some US shops the price has doubled in weeks.
Retail experts said there was little evidence of panic hoarding by the public but that restaurants and smaller retailers were buying up stocks at wholesalers in the expectation that the cost would go even higher. Shops said Filipino residents in the US were also making large purchases to send to relatives in the Philippines, where a shortage of supplies is causing concern.
"What you're seeing is people who buy in larger quantities, who have a restaurant or a corner store, stocking up because of media reports that prices could go higher," said Dave Heylen, a spokesman for the California Grocers Association.
The price of staple foods has been rising at an accelerating rate across the world, driven by what the United Nations has called a "perfect storm" of rising demand from developing countries such as China and India, the impact of climate change and policy responses by governments.
Since the beginning of the year, rice-producing countries including China, India, Vietnam and Egypt have imposed limits on exports to keep domestic prices down. This week, a top World Bank official predicted that Thailand, the world's largest rice exporter, might follow in restricting shipments......
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Good. About time. Rice diet, historians tell us, is what made all those Asian peoples so short in stature (now slowly recovering consuming delicious American beef.) We need more basketball players in this country, as the current NBA championships clearly demonstrated.
If we eat too much meat we will get Heart Disease, cancer, or CJD. **eyes roll**
Food crisis?
Another false crisis, perpetuated by the purveyors of crisis - big government and big media.
No bias in that headline /s. Nowhere in the article is there mention of panic. In fact they say that retail experts say there is little evidence of panic hoarding. But they still say “panic” in the headline.
CJD -- Cookin' Juicy steak Disease? I got that....
I saw somewhere else the rice in shortage here is imported Asian rice like jasmine and long grain. We eat a lot of rice at our house but it’s Tamanishiki, Japanese style short grain rice grown in California. I haven’t noticed any problems getting it but we’re going to the commissary tomorrow so we’ll see.
Watch for Barry and Hill calling for a halt to rice exports.
3rd World Midgets run amok!
What cultures eat rice?
Horrible stuff.... don’t even eat it with my favorite Chinese food.
Jokin’ witchall.
But seriously, how many Americans would hoard rice?
White rice? Yukk! Tasteless, so you pour soy sauce on it, which is mostly salt, which raises your high blood pressure, and then you die!
IE The same thing that is going on with gas prices, is now going on with rice.
Whoda thought?
It’s a distribution system thing here in the US.
Comapanies buy as needed and there is plenty to stock the shelves with here.
Not a shortage.
get with the program, eat potatos
Is rice now being turned into gasoline like corn, wheat and barley?
The media is bound and determined to push us into societal unrest followed by a deep and prolonged recession/depression due to said media-caused societal unrest. They will not stop until they’ve achieved that goal: they want to create panic ino order to totally destabilize our economy.
Eat more Chinese take-out.
Not to pick on you, but what is “hoarding”? There may be a box of Uncle Bens around here, but that probably isn’t considered “hoarding”.
What is the threshold?
Who's feeding this nonsense to the media?
Follow the money.
Well, I dropped by the Super Target on my way home and the prices were so high less than 40 people were in the grocery side. I enjoyed it very much.
Those of us with low blood pressure are required to eat lots of salty foods.
I drink soy sauce from the bottle.....the rest of you punks are girly men.
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