So have you gone out and stocked up on your 50-pound sacks of rice for the coming Rice Panic of 2008?
Why am I not surprised that the newsmedia are deliberately touting up this story to sound about a thousand times worse than it is? I will also not be surprised when, by this time next week, there really is a full-on panic about buying rice because too many morons half-understood a badly reported and overblown story.
Which is not to say that there isn’t a growing and incredibly serious problem with the food supply around the world, and that the early warning signs are coming from availability of staple grains. This story from The Economist turns a cold eye to the situation: the price of wheat rose 86% last year on the heels of a poor harvest globally, and the price of rice has risen 141% so far this year (and we’re only in Q2!). But the problem right now is not supply, it’s demand. The supply problem is still waiting for us a bit further down the road and has the potential to make things much much worse.
At Spiked, the British left-libertarian political magazine, editor Rob Lyons writes fairly harshly about a new report by a group of international relief agencies that recommends the increase in the number of small agricultural producers using non-industrial farming methods. The need for increased farm production over the next couple of decades is pretty much a given at this point, but his argument, echoed to some extent in the Economist piece, is that expecting small farmers to make up the difference in food production without resorting to industrial methods (GM crops, use of fertilizers, etc.) is too pollyanna-ish given the potential catastrophic situations we may face. Also, both articles recognize a reality that is going to be very hard to swallow for American and European politicians — reducing or eliminating farm subsidies in order to let the new realities of the market assert themselves. Without this sort of corrective move, small agricultural production in the poor nations, where the food will be needed the most, will continue to be undercut if not completely abandoned, only exacerbating the global problem.
As I pointed out recently, food shortages and resulting rioting ARE a reality in poorer countries right now and are only likely to grow worse. Costco limiting purchases of bags of rice 20 pounds and up is not likely to cause any sort of genuine shortage or any real need for panic buying in this country; anything that happens here will be fueled by stupidity and scare-mongering (both of which, sad to say, are very strong influences in our society). But we are not immune from the effects of the global food crisis. Mark Winne, a former food bank program director, has written a book about the “food gap” between the rich and poor in the United States, and recently wrote a post for the publisher’s blog, Beacon Broadside, that summarizes his main points about the increasing disparities. Mounting economic pressures on already-overextended families will manifest themselves in this “food gap”, and the threshhold that determines who is economically overextended will be pushed quite a bit higher to include people who today might still think of themselves as middle class.
As so often happens, I wonder how much could be done to offset these impending disasters with the $3 trillion we have wasted in Iraq, but I suppose that’s a question for another day.
I also just ran across this article from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that talks about the contrast between the situation here and the situation internationally.
Here is a very disquieting time line of events:
Sept. 7, 2007: Vietnam, the world’s third-biggest rice exporter, restricts rice exports to slow inflation.
Dec. 4: Argentina temporarily restricts grain exports.
Jan. 1: China, the world’s biggest grain producer, starts to curb overseas sales of wheat, corn and rice by issuing export permits.
Jan. 19: Egypt bans rice exports.
Feb. 8: The American Bakers Association asks the U.S. Department of Agriculture to curb wheat exports.
Feb. 27: At least four people are killed during three days of protests over high commodity prices in Cameroon.
March: Philippines authorities begin to crack down on hoarders.
March 17: India halts all exports of non-basmati rice. It also extends an existing export ban on crops such as peas and beans.
March 28: Vietnam extends rice export restrictions.
April 4: Haitians riot over rising food prices. At least three people are killed.
April 6: Egyptians riot over rising food prices.
April 9: Corn commodities on the Chicago Board of Trade reach a record $6.16 a bushel.
April 12: Police clash with 10,000 workers in Bangladesh who smashed vehicles and attacked factories, demanding higher wages to pay for food.
The Haitian prime minister is forced to step down in an attempt to defuse anger over food prices. A U.N. police officer bringing food to his unit in Port-au-Prince is killed.
April 14: U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says that a global food crisis has reached “emergency proportions.” The World Bank has forecast that 33 nations from Mexico to Yemen may face social unrest.
April 16: Malawi plans to restrict corn exports.
April 17: Kazakhstan, the world’s sixth-largest wheat exporter, bans wheat exports between April 27 and Sept.1.
April 18: India permits rice exports to Bhutan.
Indonesia, the world’s third-largest rice producer, says it will hold back surplus rice.
Tuesday: Thailand, the world’s largest rice exporter, is under pressure to restrict exports. A World Bank official likens any restriction to Saudi Arabia reducing oil exports.