Someone showed me this today. I had no idea about it! I've never personally seen this happen in the US, so it's a bit unnerving. http://nysun.com/news/food-rationing-confronts-breadbasket-world
I've never seen it happen either. Sounds a bit melodramatic, although prices are certainly rising on most common items. That's true not just in the US but most places in the world. With a world population of 6.6 billion and growing, food shortages promise to become much more common.
Thanks USA, I was going to post this tonight. I've noticed shortages as well. Interesting article to say the least. People hoarding rice in Silicon Valley. Who woulda thunk it?
Many oriental and hispanics there. Rice is a staple to many in the Silicon Valley. (oh great someone will say I am racist now.... should I start hating my family since they are part Mexican?)
the problem is the use of ethanol. It's ridiculous. The corn used to fill up one car's tank is enough to feed one person for a year don't americans eat rice too? I absolutely love that stuff and eat it quite often
There are 300,000,000 people in the U.S. Take a guess and decide for yourself whether at least a few people eat rice. I eat rice, but brown rice only.
Yeah, we'll definitely see shortages as the world population continues to grow. The only images I have in my mind of people dealing with food rationing was during WWII. It may be melodramatic, but as the news and paranoia continue, so will hoarding. I didn't know that about Ethanol, wow! I'll have to read up on it. Personally, I think we should go with Switch Grass, which is native and more effective.
It is not only in USA, but in a lot of other countries, I think Philippines etc made hoarding a crime. There is far too much inflation recently, food prices in China was up 20%. I wouldn't be surprise that there will be riots in some poorer parts of the world. At least in the USA, consumers do have the money to hoard the essentials, for those poorer countries where the natives live from hand to mouth, they may just be starving right now.
I am not really concerned. This would be a big issue if you were to go India and tell them that. But in reality, Americans eat a huge variety of food. If Rice is harder to get or more expensive, trends would show that they would switch to other types of food I would think. People from India eat a ton of Rice, or at least they did when my family members went there for a visit. They would be the ones to be concerned.
Yes Americans of all races tend to eat rice, but bread is more of the staple to americans of european descent and rice the staple to asian and some hispanic americans. Sorry if you don't understand this concept, you can travel the world and quickly learn what foods are staple to a particular region, it is quite often the food they eat with most meals.
You haven't lived in the silicon valley have you? It is actually quite a hostile region when it comes to "me, myself and I". Rich people with very selfish attitutes and lots of gang mentality too.
I noticed up at the local Wal-Mart they've been doing a price shuffle since the mid-march fed actions. First they jacked up the name-brands, a week later they put them on "sale" and made the switch to have their in-store brand just under the new "sale" price for name-brands. Certain things like canned beans and vegetables came out of the price swap up by 40-50%, some things only went up 10-15%. All the sale signs came down and the last two weeks prices have finally held steady, but its an overall increase of about 20-25% over say just two months ago. Well they had plenty of bread & rice, but the produce section was a ghost town. Not a single pepper to be found, of any kind.
If Bush or Cheney told people that it's a terror-rice I think many Americans would stop eating it completely.
Sure! As if they are so trustworthy in the eyes of people But "food rationing" is really weird in the US which is actually one of the bread basket of the world or rice bowl?
I agree, even if you plant every square inch of the United States you still wouldn't grown enough corn to replace our daily oil consumption. Let alone feed us
Bio fuel is replacing one problem with another. Replacing the energy shortage problem with food shortage. On a humanitarian side I feel that food for the masses is far more important. Ethanol production is even subsidized! More should be done to encourage saving of fuel and electricity than using food to convert to bio fuel.
World consumption of grain has outpaced grain production for the last three years according to the UN. US grain elevators are now nearly empty and exports are wiping out US supplies. Time to start eating tortillas. At $1.19 a kilo they are a great bargain and go great with ground beef, cheese and beans.
It is hard to change one's diet . The corn production next year is going to decrease even more as farmers find that soya bean provides better profit. So expect even greater price increases.
Please note my comments on this misconception here. Ethanol is not causing a food shortage, Ethanol is made from cattle feed, and has nothing to do with people hoarding rice...they are simply stocking up in anticipation of summer fuel/food price hikes. The "ethanol food shortage" is a barely plausible fiction concocted by the oil interests, the quotes about it are cooked up out of context, Chevron is really out to turn people against biofuel. I do, however, agree with the poster who suggests grasses and other non-food solutions. Algae also has huge potential, yielding a whopping 800 gallons/acre of otherwise unsuitable land.