Bear with me, I have a rant. This is really irritating to me.
The WORLDS number one staple, the food you can feed a hungry child for "only pennies a day", again, the WORLDS number one staple?!
Food rationing hit first world countries
Monday, 28/04/2008
Supermarkets in the United States and Britain have begun rationing the amount of rice shoppers can buy.
It's the first significant sign that global food shortages of staple products are starting to effect first world countries, with riots already taking place in countries like Indonesia and Haiti.
Jim Morris from the California Rice Commission says the price for rice has already increased dramatically, and there are several reasons for short supply. "Less than 10 per cent of the world's rice supply is traded," he said.
"There have been some challenges with weather that have reduced some crops and there have also been a lot of export bans put in place in some of the major rice producing countries like China, India and Vietnam, Egypt and Brazil and that has contributed to the price of rice increasing very substantially."
Meanwhile 27 of the United Nation's key food agencies will meet in Switzerland tomorrow to put together a battle plan to tackle food shortages.
UN Chief Ban Ki-moon will host the meeting which will also consider reforms to agricultural markets including a speedy solution to the stalled world trade talks ( ABC Online)
They need a meeting in Switzerland to come up with a "speedy solution". I can save you guys some time and money, just grow some f$%&ing rice.
Looks like we are certainly capable of growing more rice, here in the US:
"The Mississippi delta has proven to be an ideal location for rice and most rice in the U.S. (we only grow about 1% of the rice in the world) is grown in that area. Arkansas is the number one producer of rice in the U.S. today. Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Missouri also produce rice. The old flood basin for the Sacramento River in Northern California has also proven to be a good location for rice, and California is now the number two producer of rice in the U.S.
About a third of all California medium grain rice (calrose) is exported to Japan. Then a large quantity is exported to Turkey and Jordan.
Historically, over half of all U.S.(remember we only grow about 1%) rice has been exported." Sage V Foods.
Hey, what a great solution for our depressed economy, maybe we could shoot for 2%!
Yes, I know there are trade restrictions, export rules and restrictions, blah, blah, blah. But seriously, a rice shortage?!
Ok, I have to stop now, I sound like a crazy person. I'm going to go in the backyard to flood my rice field.
By the way, we can produce more petroleum than we do. Ok, sorry I'll stop.
