Rice Prices Go Ballistic
Rice is such an important commodity in much of the world and now rice prices go ballistic.
In Asia rice is an especially important food crop. Almost every meal depends upon rice to make up an important part of it. Rice is especially important to the poor people of the region as it is the staple food that so many depend upon just to survive.Of course, it is not just rice that has gone hyper with price increases. Wheat, corn, and soybeans have similar price patterns. Food inflation is serious business. One might be able to deal with higher prices for a nice suit, a pair of shoes, movie tickets, or even a gallon of gasoline. You can cut back on your consumption a bit.
People can cut back on the consumption of food too. In many developed counties it would improve the populations health if they did so. But, there are many more poor people than rich people in this world. For these billions of poor people huge increases in food prices, for rice and just about everything else, like cooking oil, is the kind of thing that puts blood on the streets.
Governments around the world had better wake up and get real about the urgent issues of the day. The child like mindless bickering among the US presidential candidates who make promises that they know they can not keep is not reassuring. No matter who wins the election the challenges faced by this nation and the world community are likely to be overwhelming. We need a far sighted leader who has a good sense of priorities to plan for a future that is going to be challenging on many fronts.
The world faces urgent issues, like food shortages, raising food inflation, peak oil, and climate change, that threaten to sweep away any decent level of living as the 21st century nears the end of it’s first decade.
Take a look at the rice chart again. Can food riots and widespread troubles be far behind? Are we entering a period of constant warfare that will expand our drive to secure vital energy resources at the point of a gun to include securing regions of the world that produce the food that we need even more than oil? As food production falls due to drought in key production areas like the US Midwest the pressure will be on our government to “do something”.
Could a county like Argentina, rich in water and productive land, become ripe for an invasion by the worlds greatest military machine? Of course, that may not be the answer. If we manage the invasion as we have in Iraq production of everything would drop like a rock and we would end up fighting another useless war.
Perhaps we should do what the worried Chinese have been doing for the past few years. The Chinese have had their trade negotiators running around the world entering into long term contracts with producers of energy and food resources. Depending upon the present world market bidding system in a world of constant shortages will not work as prices will be bid to extremely high levels by a world in a panic.
We are already seeing nations imposing export limits on crops like rice and soybeans as domestic consumption has to be satisfied first. Get ready for an even more hostile world as nations enter a period of fending for themselves rather than of cooperation and free markets.
Unfortunately, there is probably no satisfactory answer to the challenges of decreasing energy supplies, climate change, and shortages of food and water resources. There are just too many humans living on planet Earth. A solution will probably be given by Mother Earth herself. It will not be a pleasant one.
One prominent scientist, James Lovelock, projects that by the year 2100 the earth’s human population will only be about 10% of the number presently living on this earth. Will your descendants be among them?
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