http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24262084/
Bay Area Shoppers Asked To Limit Rice Purchases
POSTED: 11:55 pm PDT April 21, 2008
UPDATED: 1:36 pm PDT April 22, 2008
The price of a food staple -- rice -- is rising significantly, NBC11 reported.
The price of rice has increased dramatically in recent weeks due to crop failure overseas and resulting hoarding, NBC11 reported.
And at least one Bay Area store is asking customers to hold back on their rice purchases. Costco has posted signs asking customers to follow their regular rice-buying habits.
The rice price increase is a result of a domino effect, NBC11's Noelle Walker reported. Drought in Australia led to a severe decline in rice production that in turn led the world's largest rice exporters to restrict exports. That spurred higher rice prices and hoarding in Asian countries, NBC11 reported.
Now in the United States, rice prices have skyrocketed.
Son Tran owns Le Cheval Vietnamese Restaurant in Oakland.
He said he's seen the price of rice go from $20 to $40 in a matter of weeks.
And Le Cheval's stockpiles are dwindling.
Add to that, the price of vegetables has gone up 50 percent, and some of Tran's regular customers aren't so regular anymore.
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The empty tables are a new and troubling trend.
Rice isn't the only food in short supply. The unleavened bread snack matzo, popular with Jewish families during Passover, is also hard to find.
Grocers underestimated demand for the product and one of the main producers of matzo crackers had a problem with one of its ovens on the East Coast, which also shortened supplies.
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1 comment:
Michael,
Having a little time to sit and think today may have been a bad thing, but came up with this idea.interested in you thoughts.
Oil prices are going up like a Titan rocket. Food supplies are growing smaller and costing more. People in countries that are not the US are starting to panic and riot. OK, we got that.
Now, put on your tin foil hat and bear with me here. We are harvesting corn for use as gas because we need/want cheaper fuel. Maybe, just maybe, some think tank came up with the idea of shorting the food worldwide so that the Middle East will start to trade "even up" for bushels of food.
We have more farm land here than anywhere, although large tracts of Iowa and Nebraska are now owned by foreign investors. Anyway, at one time South Carolina grew and exported the most rice in the world. They have a great climate for growing rice down there. Corn in the Midwest, rice in the south and beef out west. I like it. Trade you a plate of food for a tank of gas. Won't trade? Ok, we will wait, about three months ought to do it.
Later,
Rich/Wolverine
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