Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World

[whopis01]

Source: New York Sun

Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing. Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.

"Due to the limited availability of rice, we are limiting rice purchases based on your prior purchasing history," a sign above the dwindling supply said.

At the moment, large chain retailers seem more prone to shortages and limits than do smaller chains and mom-and-pop stores, perhaps because store managers at the larger companies have less discretion to increase prices locally. Mr. Rawles said the spot shortages seemed to be most frequent in the Northeast and all the way along the West Coast. He said he had heard reports of buying limits at Sam's Club warehouses, which are owned by Wal-Mart Stores, but a spokesman for the company, Kory Lundberg, said he was not aware of any shortages or limits.

Read more: http://www2.nysun.com/article/74994?page_no=1

[Xenotime]

1. and so goes the greatest nation in the world.

[tama]

2. Greatest? No. Greediest? Yes. n/t

[Acadia Blue]

8. The pigs invested in guns not butter. Look what they have done to

our wonderful country. Starting with Bill and his "investor society" and his NAFTA, the the telecommunications act that laid the way for propagandists like Fox, he paved an easy road for GW Bush the "ownership society" pig who is destroying our country with his war to make his friends rich at the expense of all of America.

They must hate America to work so hard to destroy her.

[SlicerDicer-]

44. been saying it for months.. people thought I was crazy...

Yep what a fricken surprise... all you got to do is look around and see it :/ Just wait till things really go south..


REPORTS!!! hardly I stockpiled months ago ROFL!! not to say I wont share with neighbors but hey

(crosspasted from dupe thread so people can read)

[ohio2007]

58. they'll be "BEATING" a path to your door knowing you hoarded a stockpile

You better be packing heat like the survivalists have been preaching for decades.

[islandmkl]

3. check the rest of the world and the ongoing food crises...

trickle up or trickle down...when there is nothing (or reduced stocks in this case), or not enough, to supply the demand WORLDWIDE we can only expect to see these situations BROUGHT HOME...regardless of the fact we may produce more food than WE can actually consume ourselves...

we are not buying from the farmers, after all....

[tama]

12. US is net importer of food

And the fattest nation. All the more reason to eat less - and better food, locally produced.

[ohio2007]

59. most of those south american sources will dry up as transportattion cost prohibit

the foreign farmers from reaping bounties they supplied.

[JCMach1]

4. India stopped all export of rice and cooking oils... other nations in Asia are doing similar things

Eggs and certain types of rice are now hard to get here in the UAE.

[MadHound]

5. One of the reasons I moved out to the country

Is so that I can supply most, if not all of my own food. I grow a large garden, have an orchard and berry bushes, grow shitake mushrooms, and get my beef from my neighbor. Next stop is putting in a wind turbine and water cistern so that I can be energy and water self sufficient.

Cities are going to become ever more chaotic, ever more of a death trap, since you simply can't be self sufficient with those large populations. Hell, most cities only have three days worth of food at any given time.

[ORDagnabbit]

26. thinkin about the same... whered you end up at?

[ryanmuegge]

6. But lapel pins are the story in the media.

[Muttocracy]

7. we can eat those instead, right? nt

[Stuart G]

9. Bush's 'War, Bush's Recession..now Bush's Famine.......nt

[Stuart G]

10. the idea that we cannot grow enough rice here is obscene.., the real reason is

it isn't profitable enough to grow rice. Farmers will grow what is most profitable..

[Gormy Cuss]

17. Rice hasn't been profitable. Now perhaps it will be again.

While no one wants to see food prices soar the fact of the matter is that we have enjoyed a long period of low food costs (as a % of income) in part because of cheap imports. If the imported foodstuffs aren't available or are too costly then you are right: our farmers will grow these items if they are again profitable.

Garlic is easy to grow in much of the country yet 50% of the garlic consumed in the U.S. is imported. Almost all of it is imported from China in dehydrated form for processed foods.

[Delphinus]

39. I didn't realize that about the garlic.

My neighbor grows garlic and shares it with me. He had enough for the both of us last year, but maybe I should put in a few this year too.

I've not investigated growing rice - maybe I'll check that out too.

[Gormy Cuss]

47. Here's a link on the China import trend.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11613477

Try some garlic -- it's really easy. Your neighbor is the best resource for timing and care in your area but here (inland San Fran) and in New England it was similar: plant in the fall, harvest the next Spring/Summer. I started my patch with a few bulbs of organically raised garlic from a local farm.

[SpiralHawk]

11. Bush famine Vs. Republicon famine?

No doubt scholars of the future will debate the Proper Name for this long into the night, as they sit by flickering candle stubs in their Bush-republicon-mandated cells and caves.

[OKthatsIT]

21. Bush works for WORLD crime families who run the IMF, WTO, UN

It isn't just Bush...remember that. But I would be satisfied with putting Bush on trial for TREASON, nonetheless.

[KillCapitalism]

13. It will be like the Soviet Union was in the late 80's here.

I remember reading about those poor people there having to wait in line all day for a loaf of bread, now I worry it will happen to us too.

[skooooo]

14. I've been saying for the last year...

...that we're seeing the "sovietization" of the US. Our infrastructure is going downhill, there's so much corruption in government, and all of our service industries are going to sh*t.

[skoalyman]

15. Imagen that in the land of plenty

we wont have any looks like its getting worse every day :scared:

[nodehopper]

55. USSR in the 1980s had free healtcare

true, there was no food, old technology, and problems with medicine, but the healthcare was free. That's pretty much the main difference.

[darue]

29. it was worse than waiting in line. think thousands starving to death weekly

one point is the Russian people were somewhat 'ready' for the collapse, in that they'd long been used to scrounging by by any means. The US will be a much more cruel situation.

[Hannah Bell]

45. what a crock. there weren't people starving to death in russia in the 80s.

[robertpaulsen]

51. No, but there were Russians starving to death in the 90s.

Remember, the 80's had Gorbachev running the Soviet Union with glasnost and perestroika. In 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

[ohio2007]

63. then what did they do with our winter wheat we shipped in the 80's ? feed their cattle or send it

Poland where the population was already simmering under red rule ?

[darue]

52. not talking about the 80s. the Russian economic collapse was in the 90s n/t

[Hannah Bell]

53. sorry then. the post you responded to said:

<<It will be like the Soviet Union was in the late 80's here.
I remember reading about those poor people there having to wait in line all day for a loaf of bread, now I worry it will happen to us too.>>

[darue]

54. yeah, I think...

that poster must have been talking about the rationing and lines in stores during the communist era. There were such things at that time, but generally people could get enough food as far as I know.

[ohio2007]

62. children were making tea out of tree bark and that was their breakfast. before school.

no link, just fact.

[ohio2007]

60. US and Canada bailed out the soviets with the promise "We will never use food as a weapon"

I didn't read it, I recall those statements. Couldn't have a 2nd world power with a 1st world nuclear arsenal slip into a 3rd world anarchy situation.

Ya think Putin would be capable of returning the favor ?

LOL
phatt chance comrade

[Mudoria]

16. The two stores I visited over the weekend were quite full

and no signs about any "shortages". Another sensationalist news report meant to inflame the lemmings..

[nichomachus]

18. Wow -- how can we ignore a two-store sample?

I looked out my window and it's sunny. So, no one in the country needs to carry an umbrella today.

[ohio2007]

61. if the media shows the highest price at the pump they can find......others will follow

The internet is on the pointy tip of the food rationing story. People can create a run on the store like a depression run on the banks or

see what areas haven't heard about the food panic yet.

urban legends may give rise to food riots before long by the MSM accidently showing bytes of NOLA after Katrina, for example

[Wednesdays]

22. Did you forget your sarcasm icon?

Because you saw two stores without shortages, means the entire world is like that? :banghead:

[OKthatsIT]

19. Stop ETHANOL crops. It's not good planning...

nor does it save the environment. There are many other alternatives.

KEEP CROP DIVERSITY and STOP THE WTO.

[donkeyotay]

20. There was a story on tee vee about how they had to get the third world farmers

to be more productive. They have to get them on the Monsanto GE seed and fertilizer treadmill. I think that is what has got farmers in India committing suicide. Amazingly tee vee doesn't suspect the problem might lie with globalization and the dollar, but that the problem is that some people have escaped becoming part of the global monolith.

A seed bank for biodiversity was opened in Greenland. This is a little like the zoo problem, in that zoos can keep specimens but they can't restore habitat for populations in the wild. We can pursue monolithic agribusiness, and save some seed as a genetic doomsday project, but we're not interested in saving the farmers and the cultures that knew those strains of rice in intimate detail. It seems to me like we should be saving those small farmers as well as their seed. Agribusiness and capitalism produced the current problem, and the solutions shouldn't be an excuse to expand at the expense of native farmers.

[BigDaddy44]

23. Make no mistake.. this is CONGRESSES and BUSHES fault

Yes, together, both of them.

In order to pander to farmers and big agriculture, we're incentivizing them to grow corn which we then make into ethanol instead of ... well... FOOD!!! Ethanol is a net energy loser (takes more energy to make than it spits out), but we gotta keep pandering to big agriculture now, don't we??

This isn't a supply problem. We have tons of food. Its what we're DOING with the food. We're shoving it in our gas tanks. This is just infuriating....

[lonestarnot]

24. Hyperinflation, social control, torture... is it time yet?

[Igel]

25. The one example involves basmati rice.

While Basmati is certainly rice, when you say "rationing rice" I don't automatically think, "Ah, that must mean Basmati, the stuff not grown domestically, but primarily in S. Asia." You know, where they're limiting export. It doesn't sound like they're limiting purchase of Cal-rose or long-grain.

Ok, I have 20 lbs of Basmati sitting in the kitchen, next to the larger bag of regular long-grain, but that's because I've always bought in bulk. The Basmati bin is empty, awaiting being filled next time I make a curry. There's usually one full bag and some in a bin. That doesn't count the short-grain rice ... come to think of it, I'd better check to see if I have enough for sushi tonight. (I'm likely to buy 25 or 50 lbs of flour in the next week or two, the flour bin's getting low.)

I have to wonder what the limits are on flour and oil. Two ounces of oil per person per day, or only X gallons per shopper per day?

Local stores had "rationing" (something I usually associate with government edicts) a year or two ago, but there wasn't a big news story about it. They limited the purchase of pulse--even pulse from Canada--because India and Pakistan stopped exporting it pending a full inventory of existing stocks.

[Hannah Bell]

27. I believe the NY Sun is a Murdoch paper. Printing this kind of story

causes hoarding, thereby inducing shortage.

I wonder why we're being told stories of shortage after a record global grain harvest?

[Dreamer Tatum]

28. What a load of crap

And suddenly the Sun is a reputable source, in any case?

This is nothing but supply and demand, period, paragraph.

I mean...horrors...BUYING limits? Criminy, ever been to a grocery store during a sale? This is not a new thing.

Anecdotal reports of consumers hoarding grain stocks? I thought my neighbors were all building lookout towers...turns out they're silos. I confess, however, that I'm hoarding grain products of my own...I'm baking cookies this weekend.

[Liberty Belle]

43. The shortages are real; I interviewed rice farmers last week.

Though they expressed puzzlement at the amount of price hikes and suggested gouging is at play here. I suspect market manipulation by the market powerbrokers (with BushCo behind the strings, quite possibly).

There have been food riots around the world as poor countries are unable to procure enough rice. There are also shortages of corn thanks to the biofuels demand for ethanol.

That said, I would like to see a more reliable source such as the NY Times take on this issue.

[Hannah Bell]

46. The 2007 global rice harvest was a record. The 2007 US harvest was

about the same as 2006's, mainly because US growers cut acreage because of low prices - low prices due to overhangs from a previous good harvest.

http://prn.newscom.com/cgi-bin/pub/s?f=PRN/prnpub&p1=20080420/NYSU001&xtag=PRN-prnphotos-71001&redir=preview&tr=1&row=1


The global price - about doubled in 3 months - in no way reflects the harvest figures.

[Liberty Belle]

30. Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World (US)

Source: New York Sun (4/21/08)

Many parts of America considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing.

Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.



Read more: http://nysun.com/news/food-rationing-confronts-breadbasket-world

---

In other countries, riots are breaking out over food shortages. This is a very ominous and under reported trend, take it from a nutrition writer.

[sasquatch]

31. God this sounds scary as hell to me

:(

[But....]

32. Of course we don't have time to discus this...

we got to debate flag pins:sarcasm:

[lonestarnot]

33. Saw this earlier today

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3276881 Trying to create the appearance of food shortages for food riots to put food on your family, but you might be interested in this too.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3188991

[SlicerDicer-]

34. been saying it for months.. people thought I was crazy...

Yep what a fricken surprise... all you got to do is look around and see it :/ Just wait till things really go south..


REPORTS!!! hardly I stockpiled months ago ROFL!! not to say I wont share with neighbors but hey

[Kokonoe]

35. It appears to be a simple way to keep inflation down until

W releases his final inflation chart.

[Hannah Bell]

36. Maybe it's underreported because it doesn't exist?

Evidence offered of "rationing": 1 costco in california only lets you buy 1 survivalist-sized bag of rice.

Another costco in nyc has no rice limits, but limits unspecified oil/flour purchases.

A sam's club has no limits. Costco HQ doesn't return calls.

That's it. The rest is unsupported hype about how "major retailers" on the east & west coasts are "rationing."

My supermarket only lets me buy 1 can of coffee at the sale price. Is it rationing too?


Well, if there wasn't hoarding, there will be. Someone evidentally wants there to be.

[Hannah Bell]

37. BTW, the sun is a winger paper. n/t

[BreweryYardRat]

42. Thank you for being sensible.

Sheesh. Some people around here act like Chicken Little.

[lanlady]

38. Never seen a more misleading title

Costco ran out of rice in parts of the country where there are many Asians. And that constitutes "food rationing????"

[Vinca]

40. If Bush isn't gone from the White House soon,

we'll find ourselves scavenging the woods for nuts and berries. Compare the "pre-Bush" years to now and it's hard to imagine how far we've fallen. Now food shortages? I suppose it doesn't matter since we soon won't be able to afford the gas to drive to the grocery store. I'm starting my garden next weekend.

[slampoet]

41. I call BULLSHIT on this story.

I purchase all of these staples for two restaurants here on the east coast and have seven friends in the same field.


None of them has heard ANYTHING like this.



The story is made up.

[TheWatcher]

48. Sure it is.

Go Back To Sleep.

Everything is fine.

[slampoet]

49. It's so much easier to snark than gather information isn't it?

[Hannah Bell]

50. global rice production up 1% 2006/07 harvest. Even despite the 3%

cutback in US acreage (due to years of low rice prices & overhang from a earlier bumper crop). India planned to export 4 million tons until the price spikes hit, Vietnam & Thailand (50% of world exports) also curtailed exports AFTER the price spikes, to curb speculation in their own markets. 2007/08 rice acreage up.

God doesn't like fearmongerers.

[ohio2007]

64. but its the stuff urban legends are made of. If enough people buy into it then

a snowball has a chance in hell ;)

btw,
I saw 25 lb bags of rice in the store also. I wasn't about to "shoulder" that rumor when the opportunity came up.

[robertpaulsen]

56. For those who abhor Murdoch, here's another source: CBS.

As Food Prices Soar, Some Shortages Appear
Some Stores Even Rationing Staples Such As Rice; Grocers Blame Corn Diverted For Ethanol

April 23, 2008

(CBS) A growing global shortage of food staples such as rice has led the head of the World Food Program to say a "silent tsunami" of hunger is sweeping through some of the world's poorest nations.

What's more, "Global food stocks for basic commodities like rice, wheat, other basic commodities have fallen so low that we're actually starting to see shortages here in the U.S.," Scott Faber of the Grocery Manufacturers Association observed to Early Show co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez Monday. "This is a significant problem not just here, but especially in parts of the world where people are living on less than $1 a day."

CBS News correspondent Bianca Solorzano reports actual and feared shortages, which accompany skyrocketing prices, have led some stores to start rationing the hardest-hit staples.

In a warehouse store in Mountain View, Calif., manager Stephanie Gordon told CBS News she's "been with Costco for 21 years and I haven't seen it like this before," with many consumers stocking up on staples such as rice out of growing concern over availability. It's limiting amounts shoppers can scoop up.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/23/earlyshow/main4036816.shtml

[Hannah Bell]

65. In a warehouse store in Mountain View, Calif., ...the same store

as in the NY Sun article, & they're buying JASMINE rice, for gods sake. There's no other information about US shortages, just the same "poor harvests," blah-blah.

[robertpaulsen]

66. So....nothing to worry about, everything under control, situation normal?

Problems in the Third World couldn't possibly have repurcussions in our burgeoning economy?

Not sure why you're blah-blahing this in such repeatedly dismissive fashion.

[Hannah Bell]

67. Because I've seen the production numbers.

Because I watched prices for all grains immediately spike after the summer market top & the meltdown in mortgages.

Because I know that "global stocks are down" by design.

Because I know spot prices are lower than futures prices. Because a reputable source says hedge funds currently hold contracts on the equivalent of two wheat harvests.

Because I know the value of the entire rice export market is teensy-tiny in relation to the money in hedge funds. E.g. the salary of just one fund's CEO (John Paulson) is 3.6 billion dollars, & his fund alone holds more cash than the value of the entire 2007 export crop.

My question is, why are some people so quick to buy every doom-laden story without checking it out?

[robertpaulsen]

69. So, you don't doubt the reality of this story, just the rationale?

Sorry if I was confused, some of your other posts left the impression you didn't believe the story was true at all.

BTW, it's not just happening in California:

A world of factors sends local rice prices soaring
Experts say there is no U.S. shortage, but Portland shop owners beg to differ

Friday, April 25, 2008DANA TIMS and RICHARD READ The Oregonian Staff

The dynamics of the world food economy are playing out in full force in Oregon as real and perceived shortages are driving prices to record highs. Some local stores have started to ration rice sales, and relief agencies fear a new crisis in trying to feed the world's hungry.

"What started with a shortage in Thailand and a typhoon in Bangladesh is now putting tremendous pressure on domestically produced rice," said Rich Lenardson, manager of Sun Food Service Brokerage in Portland. "I've sold rice since 1988 and I've never seen the kind of price increases we've seen in the past month or so here."

U.S. rice producers insisted Thursday that there is no real shortage. But area restaurant owners, supermarkets, businesses and relief agencies who consider rice an essential ingredient to both success and survival begged to differ.

"I went to Costco to get 50 pounds of rice last week and it just wasn't there," said Jessica Grimmer, whose Bridgeport Village store, Pudding on the Rice, is keyed to the grain. "I was able to get some at another store, but it's very, very scary to think what would happen if supplies just dried up."

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1209093929218080.xml&coll=7

[Hannah Bell]

70. I doubt there was a national shortage until the media started

telling people there was "rationing" on the basis of a limit on 50-lb purchases in one store.

I don't believe there's a rice shortage in the US. I believe it's being ginned up, & following the trajectory of the story I have an opinion about who the parties are doing the ginning.

[ohio2007]

57. Canada better make the most of global warming and plant three crops of wheat

Rice isn't going to put bread on the tables

[CANDO]

68. This is where 35 years of Conservative Economics leads us to.

Economic devastation, devalued dollar on it's way to worthless, no moral standing in the world community, and now food rationing. But it's ok, Jesus will come for us soon! Somebody just put me out of my misery.