So Back in February we got hit by the wheat shortage, causing food prices to spike dramatically. Now we are starting to see a rice shortage(recent news about rationing of larger purchases of rice). I looked into this and the poorer countries are getting hit HARD by this. I've been whining about how expensive food has been getting, but its even worse seeing that there are people out there who are starving now. Anyone know their stuff about this topic? Is there a reason why the whole world is getting hit with one blow after another? Its really sad. 

damn you uncle ben!

Seeing as there have been food riots, Uncle Ben certainly isn't the only problem.

Poor weather, poor crops, higher demand. Sounds simple and rather dehumanizing when estimates state that 100 million more people will be starving this year than last year.

Sam's club has a 4 limit on bags of rice

Moongoddess256 said: So Back in February we got hit by the wheat shortage, causing food prices to spike dramatically. Now we are starting to see a rice shortage(recent news about rationing of larger purchases of rice). I looked into this and the poorer countries are getting hit HARD by this. I've been whining about how expensive food has been getting, but its even worse seeing that there are people out there who are starving now. Anyone know their stuff about this topic? Is there a reason why the whole world is getting hit with one blow after another? Its really sad.

 Basically demand is going up while production is falling. These idiotic environmentalists are largely to blame as they've encouraged farmers to plant bio-fuel crops instead of food crops. The world is now facing a food shortage far worse than anything global warming could inflict. I really can't say how angry eco-fascists make me. They're filled with self righteousness that they know best despite the fact that weather systems are almost impossible to predict. Changing the 6th decimal place in a computer projection program can completely change the predicted weather output. Yet they're happy to use science which doesn't have a good level of accuracy to force people to change their daily lives right down to what fuel they use and what crops they grow. We're now seeing the consequences with poor people starving and massive food price inflation in the developed world.

dsoverpsp said: Sam's club has a 4 limit on bags of rice

Well, I doubt its because of rationing. Its more likely that they were selling it below cost to attract customers and put a limit to make sure people did not exaggerate.

@Topic
I'm not sure what is up with rice production, but one of the problems with wheat and corn is that farmers can now turn corn into ethanol which has increased the commodity prices of corn, thus making wheat farming less attractive than corn.

Once science has cracked the mystery behind mass production of cellulose ethanol (Ethanol made with the husks and stems of corn which go to waste instead of the edible parts used to make regular ethanol), the land used for corn will go back to being used to grown more diverse food crops. When that happens, we'll have the environmental benefits of ethanol without sacrificing food supplies. Sir Richard Branson is heavily invested in cellulose ethanol's research. He even believes he (virgin) can fly planes on the stuff.

If you want another potential and current humanitarian disaster, look up Zimbabwe's current inflation levels. They are literally in the 100 000%. The Zimbabwean government earlier this year had to issue 10 000 000$ bank notes, just so people could reasonably carry enough currency to buy daily necessities. Recently, they've found that the 10M$ notes aren't enough, so they issued 50 000 000$ bank notes. A loaf of bread costs millions of Zimbabwean dollars.

My Bloody PS3 struck out what I wrote. It was poignant!!! Poignant I tell you!!!

Huh. I can't say anything about this as I have not felt this shortage. Everything is in abundance for as long as I can remember and it's business as usual. Not food price spike or anything like that.

Apparently, at least a portion of the problem have been people and goverments hoarding?

- High demand from the new big economic countries (China and india).

- I also heard something about Bio-Fuel. They need terrain to make Bio-Fuel and people are closing their grain terrains and change it to a terrain where they can make Bio-Fuel.

I am not sure what they said about the Bio-Fuel thing though.

@Topic
I'm not sure what is up with rice production, but one of the problems with wheat and corn is that farmers can now turn corn into ethanol which has increased the commodity prices of corn, thus making wheat farming less attractive than corn.

Once science has cracked the mystery behind mass production of cellulose ethanol (Ethanol made with the husks and stems of corn which go to waste instead of the edible parts used to make regular ethanol), the land used for corn will go back to being used to grown more diverse food crops. When that happens, we'll have the environmental benefits of ethanol without sacrificing food supplies. Sir Richard Branson is heavily invested in cellulose ethanol's research. He even believes he (virgin) can fly planes on the stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulose_ethanol

If you want another potential and current humanitarian disaster, look up Zimbabwe's current inflation levels. They are literally in the 100 000%. The Zimbabwean government earlier this year had to issue 10 000 000$ bank notes, just so people could reasonably carry enough currency to buy daily necessities. Recently, they've found that the 10M$ notes aren't enough, so they issued 50 000 000$ bank notes. A loaf of bread costs millions of Zimbabwean dollars.

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/story.html?id=450317