Re: OT...Got Garden? Daily Food Crisis in the News

On Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:33:26 -0400, Bill <b2forewagner@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>In article <iqc11452dctnbhnslfa75p8904hkb7q7ra@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, Charlie wrote:
>
>> Eff me, gonna be a run food.  Followed by runs on what else, I wonder.
>
>Awhile back I sort of remember that this is common type of event.  What 
>is interesting is that three different world views interprets the real 
>world differently. 
>
>Here in the USA we raise prices.
>In USSR the product never hit the shelf.
>In China there was another way of dealing with the same issue. Forgot it.

Step Aside Dollar, Is Rice the New Global Currency?

http://alternet.org/audits/83345/

Excerpt:

Never before in history has hunger become a global threat in a period
of plentiful harvests. Global rice production will hit a record of 423
million tons in the 2007-2008 crop year, enough to satisfy global
demand. The trouble is that only 7% of the world's rice supply is
ex****ted, because local demand is met by local production. Any
significant increase in rice stockpiles cuts deeply into available
supply for ex****t, leading to a spike in prices. Because such a small
pro****tion of the global rice supply trades, the monetary shock from
the weak dollar was sufficient to more than double its price.

It is not only rice, of course, that the cash-rich countries of the
world are buying as a store of value; the price of wheat, soy and other
grains has risen almost as fast. This might deal the death-blow to
America's hapless efforts to stabilize the Middle East, where a higher
pro****tion of impoverished people eat off state subsidies than in any
other part of the world. Egypt has been the anchor for American
diplomacy in the Arab world since the Jimmy Carter administration (1977
to 1981), and is most susceptible to hunger. Food prices have risen by
145% in Lebanon and by 20% in Syria this year. Iraqis depend on food
subsidies financed by American aid.



>
>Source for this lost in time.  But I find the USA rice shortage 
>interesting as it deals with price and the USSR solution.
>
>......................
>
>Ps Someone sent me this

"We're a little disorganized."  ;-)

Charlie