"Dangerous" beetle found at Los Angeles airport

Reuters ^ | Jan 5, 2011 | Dan Whitcomb

[george76]

U.S. customs officials said on Wednesday they had found a beetle considered one of the world's most dangerous agricultural pests in a shipment of rice arriving at Los Angeles International Airport. Agricultural specialists with U.S. Customs and Border Protection found an adult khapra beetle, eight larvae and a shed skin in a shipment of Indian rice from Saudi Arabia ...

Earlier this year, border protection officials in Detroit found a khapra beetle in a shipment of tile from China.

[blackdog]

I've flown bull semen, monkeys, turtles, transplant organs, missile parts, Mother Theresa, Andy Griffith, golf bags too heavy to go on the regular baggage, rolls of carpet, and the dumbest commodity ever.........Thousands of pounds of the New York Times newspaper.

But I have never flown a fungible commodity. Why would anyone? It's traded on contracts. The only possible excuse would be if it were seedstock rice, with proprietary genetics. That would make sense.

[SaraJohnson]

Globalism’s free trade needs all the infestations of the world to infest the serfs of the banksters and limo socialist citizens of the world. We are all the lowest common demoninator of Africa, China and India now. Woo hoo! We have arrived! We are finally “diverse.”

[blackdog]

Buy a goat in May, sell it to some goat-eater in October. You won’t have a kudzu problem. You’ll shell out about $20 for the goat and sell it as a finished out meat goat for about $175. That’s a $150 gain on your kudzu problem.

[Presbyterian Reporter]

if they found one, 10,000 already got thru.

____

Ditto and “Good enough for Government Work” also comes to mind.

[hennie pennie]

I thought I'd read somewhere, maybe at the American Rice Board OR Federation - OR whatever it's called, that something like 95 percent of all rice eaten in the USA is domestically grown.

Strange to think of rice imports from Saudi Arabia.....

[Revolting cat!]

Maybe I'm amazed!

[New Jersey Realist]

[xrmusn]

I think it’s rice from India. India Indians were called Indians before American Indians were called Indians.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Please forgive me for not putting a ‘sarcasm’ mark on my message.

Thank You.

[xrmusn]

I think it’s rice from India. India Indians were called Indians before American Indians were called Indians.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Please forgive me for not putting a ‘sarcasm’ mark on my message.

Thank You.

[saganite]

Carpe Diem?

[muawiyah]

Regarding rice, the United States is one of the world's MAJOR RICE EXPORTING NATIONS ~ not the biggest but still a major. I think Viet Nam is the second largest big boy in that game ~ right behind Thailand ~ which isn't what the Commies imagined was the point of their stupid wars, but there you have it. Viet Nam grows great rice ~ people actually like it BTW. They get more than two crops a year and it's one of the few places you can do that.

The US doesn't eat much rice ~ it's not a major staple here, but we can grow it just like ringin' a bell ~ see Texas, Arkansas, South Carolina ~ darned near entire countries worth of rice in each one.

Now, Saudi ~ used to didn't have agriculture. About the time I graduated from highschool somebody there said "Hey, bro, we be pumpin' water" ~ so they began working with Midwestern agricultural specialists (called farmers and universities) to figure out what to do with their relatively mild climate, warm days, cool nights and all that water left over from the oil industry.

They came up with wheat, corn, garden vegetables, and so on.

Now obviously that stuff was expensive ~ in the beginning ~ so you never saw it in stores. After they'd developed tens of thousands of acres they finally had enough of their own people trained in farming to begin raising specialty crops. I think you can also find vast areas of greenhouses there too ~ keeps the plants from drying out.

The Saudi farmers have found themselves in an enviable position ~ they have enough water to grow stuff that sells for a top market price. At the same time they can easily grow rare specialty crops and export them. I'd love to have a little box of Saudi rice sitting there next to a 25 pound bag of California's Kokuho Rose!

The guys in Saudi put a lot of money into finding ways to filter seawater so they can pump it into their fields. Eventually the water in the oil fields will wither away, but before then they want to make sure they have the technology that'll make it possible to continue living there.

This is no small issue. When I took my first Middle Eastern studies course decades back Saudi claimed 7 million people ~ although most analysts thought it was more like 1.5 million ~ they lied for self protection. Now, they claim 24 million people and NO ONE doubts they have that and more.

Because of their wealth traditional restraints on family size disappeared and everybody had a couple of generations of HUGE families. Now the've gotta' figure out how to support 'em.

[Puckster]

“Must be pretty dangerous, I remember reading about the
Great Pyramid of Khapra...”

I think your confusing that with the KhupaKhapra
.....Better known in hispanic as “Chupacabra”.

[Stonewall Jackson]

[BunnySlippers]

My old “V Dub”.

[BunnySlippers]

Good catch.

Especially as I believe CA grows most of the rice in the US.

[cmsgop]

I’m gonna use that as my new Facebook profile photo....

[blam]

"Especially as I believe CA grows most of the rice in the US."

Yup. California is the #1 rice exporting state...not Louisiana as many think.

Florida is the #1 cattle exporting state...which no-one expects.

[Levante]

Is that the back of obama’s head?