April 23, 2008
Food Shortages?
Some disturbing stories:
Costco CEO: demand rises for rice, flour
Costco Wholesale Corp, the No. 1 warehouse club operator, has seen increased demand for items like rice and flour as customers, worried about global food shortages, stock up, its chief executive said in an interview on Tuesday.
James Sinegal, the CEO, told Reuters the retailer had seen a spike in demand in the past week and a half, and some stores, including locations in California's Bay Area, had limited quantities. "There's been an increase in purchasing, but we think it's manageable. At the moment, we think we have it relatively under control," he said....
"Relatively" under control. That's good to know. How about this?
Wal-Mart's Sam's Club limits rice purchases
Sam's Club warehouse division said on Wednesday it is limiting sales of several types of rice, the latest sign that fears of a rice shortage are rippling around the world.
Sam's Club, the No. 2 U.S. warehouse club operator, said it is limiting sales of Jasmine, Basmati and long grain white rice "due to recent supply and demand trends."...
Hmmm.... But wait, there's more...
Bakers feeling pinch of short supplies
Already feeling the pinch from soaring wheat and flour prices, U.S. bakers are now beginning to experience some supply shortages.
Rye flour stocks have been depleted in the United States, and by June or July there will be no more U.S. rye flour to purchase...
That's in the U.S., where we aren't used to shortages of this kind but where most of us can manage, even with short stocks and rising prices. In other, less wealthy places around the globe, there are food riots happening now, some of them bloody.
The soaring cost of food
..."A wave of food-price inflation is moving through the world, leaving riots and shaken governments in its wake," says the Economist.
Demonstrations over the prices of rice are occurring all over Asia and food riots in Haiti claimed the lives of six people earlier this week....
Some of it driven by drought...
A Drought in Australia, a Global Shortage of Rice
...The Deniliquin mill, the largest rice mill in the Southern Hemisphere, once processed enough grain to meet the needs of 20 million people around the world. But six long years of drought have taken a toll, reducing Australia’s rice crop by 98 percent and leading to the mothballing of the mill last December.
Ten thousand miles separate the mill’s hushed rows of oversized silos and sheds — beige, gray and now empty — from the riotous streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, but a widening global crisis unites them.
The collapse of Australia’s rice production is one of several factors contributing to a doubling of rice prices in the last three months — increases that have led the world’s largest exporters to restrict exports severely, spurred panicked hoarding in Hong Kong and the Philippines, and set off violent protests in countries including Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, Italy, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, the Philippines, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Yemen....
Nervous yet? I am.
Posted by jnfr at 12:39 PM | Comments (0)