food prices
I have been listening to the reports on rising food costs such as this article discussing a 70% increase in rice this year & have decided it is time to take action & put in my own organic Victory vegetable garden this year. That way I will put my composting to work & be able to harvest pesticide free crops from some heritage seeds I have been saving. Now we just need some warm weather.
U.S. rice futures soared to an all-time high Wednesday as investors bet that surging world demand will continue to pressure already dwindling stockpiles. Rice for the most actively traded July contract jumped 62 cents to $24.82 per 100 pounds on the Chicago Board of Trade, after earlier rising to a record $24.85.
Relentless demand from developing countries and poor crop yields have pushed rice prices up 70 percent so far this year, raising concerns of severe shortages of the staple food consumed by almost half the world's population.
The steep increases have followed similar jumps in the price of wheat, corn and soybeans that have added to Americans' growing grocery bill and led to violent food riots in poor countries including Haiti, Senegal and Pakistan.
Most of the rice eaten in the world is consumed within 60 miles of where it was grown, said Nathan Childs, an economist and rice expert with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Traditionally very little of it was traded in the world market.
But as populations crossed borders, the taste for specialty rices such as the Indian basmati, or Thai jasmine rice, which grow only in their areas of origin, spread.
U.S. production of long grain and medium grain rice is strong, and the global crop is larger than ever, Childs said. But with some of the principal exporters of the higher-priced rices, such as India and Vietnam, shunning foreign sales to control prices at home and the cost of food generally going up, the price of rice has been climbing to new heights.
What adds to the price spike - and the run on specialty products like basmati - is that rice consumers tend to be very loyal. The market is highly segmented by type of rice and quality, and buyers will generally not take a substitute, Childs said.
"California's had a pretty good crop, but basmati and jasmine consumers have a history of not switching," he said. "They could always have bought cheaper Calrose. But they don't."
Associated Press writers Stevenson Jacobs and Verena Dobnik in New York, Juliana Barbassa in San Francisco and Rodrique Ngowi in Boston contributed to this report.