Rising global food prices

[doseiai]

I'm particularly alarmed by the powerful in my nation (USA) pushing up food and commodity prices by speculation. Lately, due to biofuel demands from rich nations and anti-carbon legislation, food prices are going up and up, and this is just beginning. This may sting badly for a lot of us, but this is beginning to turn deadly for the not so fortunate.

It seems my country is happy to see starvation, because it will help create unrest to overthrow "unfriendly" or "uncooperative" governments. It's the latest warfare since everyone's got nukes now, and nuclear war would be a disaster. I'm thinking the US is targeting internal chaos and instability in China as an agent for regime change. But the collateral damage to other nations is far too great, and my leaders will go down in history similar to the likes of Stalin and Mao's failed collectivization schemes which lead to mass famines. If 9-11, iraq war are any indication, even thousands of innocent American lives are just "collateral damage", and foreigners lives are worth even less.

With US busy in Iraq and Afghanistan we have few helicopters, few planes, and even less manpower to respond to natural or manmade disasters. No other military can help as few have the naval and air support resources that we do.

Already, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Mizoram and Tripura in India, Afghanistan, parts of Indonesia, Kenya, Mozambique, Sudan, Uganda, Somalia, DRC, North Korea and Burma are requiring emergency food aid. This is some HALF OF A BILLION people folks, and its just the beginning.

Pakistan and Afghanistan - triggered by Bhutto assassination (no doubt America had something to do with it)
Bangladesh - doubly hit by floods and cyclone
Kenya and Sudan - triggered by ethnic problems
Mizoram and Tripura - triggered by rat devouring rice fields
Burma, N Korea - no trigger, chronic underproduction
Indonesia - annual floods, displaced people since 2004 Tsunami and subsequent quakes.

Vietnam is vulnerable, as it has a huge trade deficit equal to 15% of GDP, triple that of the US, and has little currency reserves. All it takes is one third world nation to pop, and investors will lose faith in emerging markets. This is how the 1997 crisis started. Indonesia too is vulnerable, as it's got a huge population hit by regular disasters and an impotent government with few resources.

"Thousands face starvation in Kenya" in pictures..., LA Times (very good)
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-kenya5jan05,1,7948595.story?coll=la-news-a_section

"China's cabinet on Monday sharply increased penalties for price-fixing, expanding an anti-inflation campaign that has failed to cool a surge in politically sensitive food costs." "Food costs soared by 18.2 percent in November"
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i_GnchsrOsWq07cOXj7f17XcUnjQD8U5G3980

RICE:
"Today, global (rice) yield is growing at 0.6 percent, the lowest level it’s been in recent history.”
"Global supplies are headed downward, sharply. In October, USDA estimated global ending stocks at roughly 77 million tons. That dropped to 74.1 million tons in November and to 72.1 million tons in December. Supplies are down close to 50 million tons from the record level of 2001-2002 and are at the lowest level since 1983-1984."

http://southwestfarmpress.com/grains/ending-stocks-0108/

WHEAT:
"Wheat hit a new record last week in Chicago, topping $8 (£3.97) a bushel. It has risen by 54pc in three months and no one is prepared to stand in the way of the agricultural bull."

"The soaring price of wheat is not an isolated phenomenon. All around the agricultural markets prices are rising. Corn doubled last year, while the price of soybeans is more than 50pc higher than it was 12 months ago."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/09/05/ccwheat105.xml

"The USDA this month pegged world wheat ending stocks at 110.1 million metric tons, a 30-year low"

http://www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/2007/12/23/news/state/145139.txt

CORN:
"Corn rose to the highest ever in Chicago on speculation that global demand for feed and biofuel will exceed production for the seventh time in the past eight years."

"World inventories of corn will fall to the lowest since 1984 on Sept. 30, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Jan. 11. Inventories in the U.S., the world's largest producer and exporter, will be 20 percent smaller than forecast last month, the USDA said. Prices have jumped 49 percent in the past five months, even after last year's record harvest."

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ae.bMqon3bkk&refer=home

Food production levels seem to be healthy, but prices are rising so fast most of the poor won't be able to access it, it will be burnt for fuel, and many nations are one disaster away from crisis. Fertilizer prices are skyrocketing too along with oil. This will cause formerly self sufficient nations to reduce production and beg, adding on more fuel to the fire.

This madness must be stopped. This is Bush's new world, and if you think Bush is going away after the election, think again! Bush is so ingrained now into the US economy, a Democratic election win won't stop the neocons, as they have sold trillions of dollars of energy assets to take up huge stakes in everyday US companies. (aka laundering for regular folks, loopholes for them) Those companies have near total control of the government, and by extension, much of the earth. We need to have regime change here in the US, and legislation with teeth to go after those who speculate. Action must be taken now, for the billion of those who can't protect themselves and are written off as "collateral damage". Thailand, though not at immediate risk, won't escape unscathed by any means, and surely doesn't have the resources to compete with China or Japan or a gas guzzling America or a super strong euro. If China was such a threat, we should have never engaged them economically in the first place. Neocons aren't gonna give up simply because foreigners or even Americans are pushed to the limit. China has vast resources and can withstand much more assault than the likes of Thailand, and my fear is this will be a long and protracted struggle.

[Wisarut]

Thailand, though not at immediate risk, won't escape unscathed by any means, and surely doesn't have the resources to compete with China or Japan or a gas guzzling America or a super strong euro. If China was such a threat, we should have never engaged them economically in the first place. Neocons aren't gonna give up simply because foreigners or even Americans are pushed to the limit. China has vast resources and can withstand much more assault than the likes of Thailand, and my fear is this will be a long and protracted struggle.

Already, the goverment and the palm oild producers are quarrelling about how to solve the problem of palm oil hike. Govermnemtn want to lift the ban of Palm oil import by point out that palm oil reserved is lower that the threshold but the producers said they would NOT accept the lift of import ban by pointing out that they have stocked enough palm oil, just Palm oil hike would allow them to release the reserve ....

Similar things also happen to Sugar mills ... they said they have stocked the morass enough to produce both sugar and alcohol for gasohol ... just allow gradual price hike and they would ensure that no shortage of sugar, booze and gasohol produced from morass from their mills.

However, the rice mills compalined about Baht Hike, whcih make Thai rice too expensive to export, allowing Vietnam to grobble ther market shares ...

Well, China is a big neighbor, having to learn how to live with a Giant even though China threat is REAL ....

[doseiai]

Wisarut, I'm not talking about a food price increase or "making room" for China, but something far worse. I'm talking of the possibility of mass starvation and famines in Thailand, but especially Africa and South Asia and worldwide. This is extremely serious, with up to hundreds of millions of people dying.

I really don't want to know or imagine to what lengths necons will go to achieve their goals for a "New American Century". But I'm afraid we will find out all too soon. Things may go downhill quick for people and nations who are most vulnerable.

btw...this post is miscategorized, it should be under "politics", not local news.

[Wisarut]

Wisarut, I'm not talking about a food price increase or "making room" for China, but something far worse. I'm talking of the possibility of mass starvation and famines in Thailand, but especially Africa and South Asia and worldwide. This is extremely serious, with up to hundreds of millions of people dying.

I really don't want to know or imagine to what lengths necons will go to achieve their goals for a "New American Century". But I'm afraid we will find out all too soon. Things may go downhill quick for people and nations who are most vulnerable.

btw...this post is miscategorized, it should be under "politics", not local news.

Hmmm Yeah possible so ... when food still abundant but price out of reach for the oridinary ... forcing the local folks to subsistent by dogs, yam, grass roots, tree barks or even clay as those kids form Sisaket had eaten .. or worse!

[jpatokal]

This is extremely serious, with up to hundreds of millions of people dying.
Psst -- Malthus went out of style in the 1700s. Famine is political, and no democracy has ever suffered one. Not that this helps people dying in (insert pestilent hellhole here), but there are far more immediate causes than Bush's misguided biofuel subsidies.

[doseiai]

Agreed, nowadays famine is political, and Malthus's production problem has long since been discredited. As I stated, there are no overall worldwide production problems...just distribution problems. But same goes with oil, there is plenty of it. That never stopped powerful people from speculating and creating localized shortages.

My point is...famine is already beginning, not in Thailand, but in African nations that were poor but managing until now. A further 300 m people in South Asia are on emergency food relief, and those countries are running down their cash importing massive amounts of food at a time when world stockpiles across the board are at 30 year lows. Those very nations, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (total pop 350 m) are at much higher risk compared to just last year.

Despite what we hear in the media, our most powerful rival (unallied) is always enemy no 1. If China remains on track to overtake the US economically (from which military resources can be obtained), I seriously doubt the neocons will just "let them". Since a conventional or nuclear war with China is out of the question, putting enormous pressure on resources, fuel, food, minerals, etc seems to be far more preferable. What neocons strive for is massive demonstrations that lead to permanent regime change. China has shown its resilience through multiple crises, from Tiananmen Square, to Asian Currency Crisis, to the US recession. Toppling a government by mass unrest requires a far higher level of resource constraining than today, and if that happens, poor nations will no doubt suffer tremendously. Let me clarify, Thailand is roughly the same income level as China, so Thailand could see a considerable squeeze in such a scenario. Of course, famine would be very unlikely in Thailand as its a major rice producer, but a distant possibility, due to drought or whatever. Of course, far poor nations in Africa, South Asia or elsewhere and those hit by natural disaster would suffer much more severely and much earlier, and famines in those nations would be a very real possibility. As China strengthens, my bet is that you will see increasingly severe politically induced resource shortages.

[Baton Rouge]

Apologies if I have got the wrong end of the stick here. I'm not sure I really subscribe to the grand conspiracy theory anyway. Although it does seem fairly apparent that badly thought-out energy alternatives are causing havoc with food production.

In the mean time, I just saw this at the website of the Government's PR Department. http://thainews.prd.go.th/newsenglish/previewnews.php?news_id=255101170008
17 January 2008
NEWS HEADLINE :. Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry promotes rice bran oil
Minister of Agriculture and Cooperatives Thira Sutabutr (ธีระ สูตะบุตร) says the ministry suggests that rice bran oil producers should speed up increasing the market share of 5% due to a shortage of palm and soy bean oils.

The minister says rice bran oil has good nutrition but is less popular than other vegetable oils. He therefore requests the Rice Department to expedite public relations campaigns to promote rice bran oil as well as processed rice products.

According to Mr Thira, palm and soybean oils have the market share of as high as 60% and now face shortages. The price of rice bran oil is 42 baht a liter, higher than palm oil by 41 baht a liter.

As for the Ministry of Commerce’s policy to import palm oil of 30,000 tonnes in January, the minister says it will not affect the palm oil price in early March. Mr Thira also calls on the Ministry of Commerce to make sure that the import of palm oil will not decrease the domestic crude palm oil price.
Reporter : RTI-Reporter05

I have long liked to buy Rice Bran Oil. It seems to have dietary advantages, and I always hope (almost beyond hope) that buying it will benefit Thailand's sorely-abused small rice farmers. That said, it has been off the shelves for weeks. The experts might just tell us that this is something to do with the production cycle of this product. Or even the fact that recent demand has outstripped normal production levels. But conventional wisdom seems to have it that the Rice Bran Oil manufacturers have been deliberately withholding their product in order to capitalize at a later date on much higher cooking oil prices.

"The price of rice bran oil is 42 baht a liter, higher than palm oil by 41 baht a liter." Well that's rather badly worded! They mean that Rice Bran Oil is about 1 baht a liter more expensive.

Also this. http://thainews.prd.go.th/newsenglish/previewnews.php?news_id=255101170002
17 January 2008
NEWS HEADLINE :. Imported raw palm oil may hit farmers
The Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister, Mr. Thira Sutabutr (ธีระ สูตะบุตร), expresses his concern that oil palm farmers may suffer from the lower palm oil prices, as Thailand is importing more palm oil.

Mr. Thira says no more than 30,000 tons of palm oil will be imported to relieve the burden of consumers who have been hit by escalating prices of vegetable oil products. He says the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives maintain the price of domestic raw palm to prevent the oil palm farmers from being affected. The price of current raw palm oil is at 6.50 baht per liter.

According to Mr.Thira, the endorsement of palm oil import will be due next month, as the decision may hit palm oil export in March. He adds that the ministry aims to offer short-term assistance to consumers, while expecting fewer impacts on farmers as well.
Reporter : RTI-Reporter02

[doseiai]

Yes, what we feel in Thailand or USA is magnified in nations where food production hinges on weather and people earn less than a dollar a day. It is really hard for us to understand how hard it can hit others when it is simply annoying to us.

We may complain if eggs go from $99c to $1.99, or if cooking oil goes up from 20 baht to 30 baht per liter, but in nations like Bangladesh, if that happens, people go without food.

This is no conspiracy theory. All hegemons in history have always defended their title. And no nation has ever willingly gave it up. Plus, the self titled "Project for a New American Century" can't be ignored. See it here:

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

Point is, America will do whatever it takes to stay on top. I'm not saying that America is deliberately evil. I'm saying, America may not know its own power, and not realize the extent of damage we are about to inflict on nations that barely get by as it is.





from Financial Times, UK, January 26 2008 : http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/df52ae50-cbb1-11dc-97ff-000077b07658.html

The pressures in global food markets have grown so intense that, for the first time in its history, the World Food Programme is finding it hard to procure supplies of essential commodities, senior officials at the United Nations body said yesterday.

In particular, they said, countries in the emerging world were now placing so many export controls on items such as wheat to

conserve them for their own populations that they had sometimes refused to release supplies when the WFP (World Food Programme) asked for emergency goods.

"We have never seen this before: we went begging for wheat and for two weeks we could not find it," said a senior WFP official at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where growing geopolitical tensions over food supplies and other resources dominated many debates.

[Wisarut]

Yes, what we feel in Thailand or USA is magnified in nations where food production hinges on weather and people earn less than a dollar a day. It is really hard for us to understand how hard it can hit others when it is simply annoying to us.

We may complain if eggs go from $99c to $1.99, or if cooking oil goes up from 20 baht to 30 baht per liter, but in nations like Bangladesh, if that happens, people go without food.

This is no conspiracy theory. All hegemons in history have always defended their title. And no nation has ever willingly gave it up. Plus, the self titled "Project for a New American Century" can't be ignored. See it here:

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

Point is, America will do whatever it takes to stay on top. I'm not saying that America is deliberately evil. I'm saying, America may not know its own power, and not realize the extent of damage we are about to inflict on nations that barely get by as it is.


From: http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=93303, Pakistan

For the case of cooking oil, it has already JUMPED from 30 Baht/liter to 45-50 Baht/Liter -> the price in Tesco Lotus, Big C, Carrefur .... Now, the palm oil in Mae Sod is 45-50 Baht/Liter ... Even though the Govenremtn has allowed the Import of Palm Oil, it jsut a temporary reliefs.

Many WONDER why the government REFUSES to impose export Tax to keep more domestic produce cooking oil from leaving the country ....

[doseiai]

Famines in the news:

1. Mizoram (India) takes measures to mitigate famine, The Hindu, http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/004200801261722.htm

2. World Food Programme ups food aid to Myanmar, Monsters and Critics, http://news.monstersandcritics.com/business/news/article_1385484.php/World_Food_Programme_ups_aid_to_Myanmar

2. Famine looms as Southern Africa is hit by floods, KenyaToday, http://politics.nationmedia.com/inner.asp?cat=AFROPOLITICS&sid=1328

3. Kenya faces famine threat, Nationmedia. http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=1&newsid=115196

4. Uganda: Wide Spread Famine Hits Karamoja Region, Uganda, AllAfrica.com, http://allafrica.com/stories/200801161078.html

5. Afghan Minister Says Famine Possible, Neue Osnabruecker Reports, Bloomberg, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601091&sid=agIK2pK1xKs8&refer=india

6. Famine hits Upper East, Ghana, The Statesman, http://www.thestatesmanonline.com/pages/news_detail.php?newsid=5578&section=1

7. UK Supermarket Importing Fish From Famine-Ravaged Zimbabwe, ShortNews, http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=67442

Geograhically speaking, this isn't one area. Let's see, Ghana is in West Africa, Kenya is several thousands of miles east, and thousands of miles from Zimbabwe in the far south. Afghanistan is far from Mizoram (bordering Burma). Pakistan is on severe rationing, but not there yet. Bangladesh' ag production is knocked out.


http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2008/01/28/2003399227

In October the UN's spokesman on famine, Jean Ziegler, called the biofuel boom "a crime against humanity". And as the Economist magazine recently noted: "The 30 million tonnes of extra corn going to ethanol this year amounts to half the fall in the world's overall grain stocks."

from DesMoinesRegister, "Prices, farm bill provision threaten food aid", http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080127/OPINION01/801270313/-1/NEWS04

The Bush administration and the United Nations' World Food Program say provisions in both the House and Senate versions of a new farm bill could slash the amount of money available to the United Nations for famine relief.


Just reporting, folks. Not making this up, just showing news stories and their links as proof. Everyone is welcome to check the links.

[doseiai]

There's more just recently:

"Tajikistan faces catastrophe" Tajikistan is in the grip of emergency food shortages, the UN's World Food Programme is warning. BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7231528.stm, Feb 5

"Bangladesh bird flu": "Now we are facing a critical situation, as bird flu struck at a time when commodity prices from rice, flour to milk powder and edible oil had already nearly doubled," Bangladesh government employee Shahedul Alam told the Reuters news agency." BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7226446.stm, Feb 4

Feb 6, Politico, "Bush in food aid fight with Congress" http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8378_Page2.html

An estimated 850 million people are hungry in the world, but only about 10 percent receive assistance.

The United States is by far the largest global donor of food. But sharp rises in emergency feeding costs — more than 70 percent over the past six years — have begun to cripple relief programs.

Meanwhile, humanitarian crises have more than doubled since the 1980s.
The United Nations World Food Program, CARE, Oxfam and other relief agencies contend that a drop in current U.S. funding levels would be disastrous for emergency feeding programs.

“It is terribly risky. It cuts down on the administration’s flexibility, so that in times of crisis they will be unable to draw down funds from the nonemergency account,” said David Kauck, a senior adviser with CARE.

Congress regularly passes supplemental appropriations to fund unforeseen emergencies.

But the legislative timeline is often too slow, Kauck said, adding: “Time is really important in these situations. If the money doesn’t come quickly enough, people can die.”

---cont'd-----
Up to 65 percent of aid funds are spent on transportation and business expenses, according to the report.

Meanwhile, rising costs over the past five years have meant that the actual amount of food that the U.S. delivers is less than half of what it was six years ago.

Meanwhile, 3.1 trillion dollar US gov't budget, "The plan includes an additional 70 billion dollars dedicated for the "global war on terror, mainly for ongoing fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan." AFP, http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hC4eqKMoBUwRMBviDy8Dx5swxBKw

So that makes the food aid or famine list: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Bangladesh, Mizoram(India), Myanmar, North Korea, parts of Indonesia, Nicaragua, Mozambique, Lesotho, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, and Chad all of which DIDNT REQUIRE AID a year ago. Of the nations that required aid today, only Sudan was on the list 12 months ago.

[jpatokal]

So that makes the food aid or famine list: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Bangladesh, Mizoram(India), Myanmar, North Korea, parts of Indonesia, Nicaragua, Mozambique, Lesotho, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, and Chad all of which DIDNT REQUIRE AID a year ago. Of the nations that required aid today, only Sudan was on the list 12 months ago.

Oh, bullshit. Famine happens every year:

http://www.debate-central.org/links/?c=Famine

In particular (http://www.cfr.org/publication/9121/africas_food_crisis.html):

In quantitative terms, there is enough food available to feed the world’s 6.4 billion people, but 852 million people will still go hungry this year (Ed: 2005).

There is no one cause—or solution—for Africa’s famines, which explains why emergency-food crises recur year after year in many parts of the continent. Famines are often caused by drought, flood, conflict, or pandemics like HIV/AIDS or malaria. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates thirty-five countries face food crises requiring emergency assistance...

[admin]

News of Cambodia N° 0813-E

The Thai white gold and the Ayuthia's superiority on Angkor

Khemara Jati
Montreal, Quebec
February 7th, 2008

Thailand is currently the first rice’s exporter country of the world. The rice consumer’s increase in an exponential way increasing then the rice's production in the world cannot follow. The result : the price of the rice increases more than expectation. It makes the Thais people great happiness. It is interesting then to question the reasons of this prosperity.

Henri Mouhot is the first one who compares Menam to the Nile in his book « Voyages dans les Royaumes de Siam, de Cambodge et de Laos » (Journeys in the Realms of Siam, Cambodia and Laos, Ed. Olizane, Geneva 1989, 1st edition 1868), page 239 « the banks of Menam are covered as far as the eye can see with magnificent harvests; the periodic flood makes them of a fertility comparable to those of the Nile, and famous nevertheless since the antiquity. » As the Nile of the Pharaohs, every year Menam expands its fertile silt during its floods over the ricefields. It was not the case of artificial irrigation system using in Cambodia during Angkor era. Nowadays, the rice production in Thailand is concentrating on the banks of Menam and its tributaries as well as its delta with insignificant irrigation works since the Angkor time. This fact also explains the Siamese’s southward: from Ayuthia towards Thon Buri then Bangkok.

It is likely that Ayuthia was built by kings of Angkor, in particular by Jayavarman VII who had difficulties to manage the agricultural production with the Baray system fed artificially by waters of Phnom Kulên. Bernard Philippe Groslier left his main part and very important article: « the Hydraulic Town of Angkor: Exploitation or Overexploitation of the land? ». This documents lead to understand not only the importance of the agricultural prosperity of the Angkor civilization, but also its inexorable decline as well. (In Bulletin de l’Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1979, pages 161-202. What Groslier found by photos from the air and by excavations on the ground (the first ones made in Angkor), confirmed recently by statements of NASA satellite. In this article we raise from page 187:

« Angkor Thom is the last hydraulic town, in fact the last one of the Khmer cities. After her - up to the definitive abandon of Angkor indeed, it is there where the ultimate demonstrations of this civilization is concentrated - nothing more will be manifested, not even a single modest reservoir. The system died. »

It is also necessary to note that the great king Ponhea Yat had to leave Angkor definitely in 1431, because as writes Groslier « The system died ». No any single effort can fight against the nature not even with our irrigation system. It is also necessary to note that during 1520s the Portuguese reached Ayuthia with their boats, their firearms, and their knowledge. From this date it is not possible any more to write Cambodia's history without taking into account the massive Europeans arrival in our region and in eastern Asia. Nowadays, is it possible to understand what is taking place in current Cambodia by ignoring the conflicts of the geostrategic interests of major powers?

Nowadays, Cambodia can produce enough rice’s for her people and even export a million tons with the government cares of national interests. In this current regime, these million tons of rice are regrettably exported by Prey Nokor and Bangkok. Because the lack of roads especially policy to export accordingly this rice by Sihanoukville. Our farmers are obliged to sell their rice, with cheap price, to our neighbors equipped with proper access to Prey Nokor and Bangkok from our borders. All Cambodians in Cambodia know it and regret it sadly. On the other hand our rice is of better quality much netter than that producing by our neighbors. This is one more reason which makes our neighbors consuming our rice then increasing their rice exportation.

The best for us Cambodians, especially those living abroad, is to know above all, which parameter is necessary to solve unity equation of our people. For this reason it is important to listen to our fellow countrymen in Cambodia. After that and only after that, we can direct our efforts as well as the foreign helps. What is fundamental is to know how to distinguish the helps favoring the seizure of our neighbors of our lands and our wealth, helps which is making Cambodia independent of our neighbors in particular in the energy point of view. It is the fundamental question that every Cambodian has to settle and find out elements of answer.

It is necessary to note however that major powers have no interest, at least for the moment, to help us in two fundamental domains which are fundamental for the unity and the perpetuity of the Cambodian nation as well as for the development of the knowledge within our people:

1/. The use of our national language in universities and as a consequence the knowledge's distribution within our people and within our children by books of scientific popularization. To return Cambodians proud of their writing is the first fundamental objective to achieve, following examples of all the developed nations in the world, in particular at our closed neighbors.

2/. Write our History by ourselves. First by taking into account discoveries brought by archaeological excavations in particular regarding the economy where the productions were the fundamental bases of the Angkor civilization prosperity. Then by placing our history in the context of the world civilization. That is what our regretted Bernard Philippe Groslier tried to do.

[doseiai]

jpatokal, agreed Africa has recurring famines. Niger had one in 2005, and Mozambique back in 2003 as well. I didn't mean to imply that wasn't the case.

What is unusual about this year is that unlike usual regional famines in parts of Africa, this year completely different regions, the East, South and West Africa are hit simultaneously, as well as a large swath of Asia. Also, very populous nations such as Bang and Pak (together more people than USA), and former islands of stability and promise (like Kenya) are being hit. The last time this many people were in need of food aid was during the "Great Leap Forward".

I will say it again, food production isn't the problem. The problem is changing legistation in Washington, very low global stockpiles, strained relief resources due to active wars, diversion to biofuel usage, and export controls by exporters.

Of course we hope for the best. But we MUST be aware, and we MUST prepare for the worst. Being complacent may get us through 9 times out of 10...but what if it doesn't? There were many that said a disaster like Katrina could never happen in the USA.

[GWR]

Feb 14, 2008
Asia faces growing rice crisis
by Raja M

MUMBAI - An Indian government ban of rice exports has plunged neighboring Bangladesh into crisis, in a grim preview of growing global grain shortages. Leading rice-exporting nations such as India and Vietnam are reducing sales overseas to check domestic price rises. Previously healthy buffer stocks in the world's largest rice exporter, Thailand, are shrinking.

The February 7 ban by India's Ministry of Commerce and Industry intensifies a worldwide rice shortage that according to the Rome-based United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization drove up prices by nearly 40% last year. Large rice importers such as Myanmar, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia are worst affected.

An additional 50 million tonnes of rice is needed each year up to 2015 to plug the demand-supply gap, according to the Manila-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), equivalent to a 9% annual production increase from current levels of 520 million tonnes.

Intensifying price pressures, additional agricultural land for growing rice, a dietary staple for more than half the world's 6.6 billion people, is extremely limited, say analysts, while rice consumption is growing worldwide and wheat stocks are hitting record lows. The US Department of Agriculture has reported three-decade lows in wheat stocks, and India - Asia's largest wheat producer - expects lower production for 2008.

Unregulated private cross-border trading makes exact figures hard to come by, says Duncan Macintosh, director of the IRRI, told Asia Times Online from his Manila office. "Besides, Asian governments have a strategic interest in rice stocks and any declared shortage will send prices shooting up," Macintosh says.

India's rice export ban seems born out of such price rice fears, and comes at a sensitive time ahead of the final annual budget to be presented by the ruling United Progressive Alliance government on February 28 before the country's general election next year.

India's ban on rice exports follows a gradual limiting by the government of exports over the past few months. In October 2007, rice exports priced under $425 per tonne were banned and on December 31 the floor price rose to $505 a tonne.

The February 7 ban extended to all exports of rice except government-to-government trading, but excludes exports of basmati rice, a more fragrant, long-grained and expensive variety. The government will supply a previously committed 500,000 tonnes of non-basmati parboiled rice to Bangladesh at an average of US $399 per tonne, excluding insurance and freight.

The exemption was not much consolation to Bangladesh, which desperately needs food grains after Cyclone Sidr in December destroyed $600 million worth of the country's rice crop. Rice prices soared 70%, hitting hard a population in which the majority survive on less than $1 a day. In the rare years that the country is free of climatic disasters, Bangladesh produces 28 million tonnes of food grains, meeting 95% of domestic needs.

To cope with the rice crisis, the Bangladesh government in January floated global tender notices for 300,000 tonnes of various varieties of rice. The country is also importing 180,000 tonnes of white rice from neighboring Myanmar.

The Kolkata-based national daily The Statesman reported that India's export ban caused 300 rice trucks to be stranded in India-Bangladesh border zones such as Mahedipur land customs station in English Bazaar and other land ports in West Bengal. Rice traders on both sides face losses and are threatening to take to the streets if the Indian government does not reconsider the ban.

Worse, in a repeat of a disaster that last struck in 1959, a famine threatens remote areas of southeast Bangladesh after millions of rats devastated food crops as the rodents reproduced in dramatic numbers following a flowering of bamboo forests that happens every 50 years.

The rat breeding out-paces the bamboo flower growth, and soon the animals turn to ravaging rice stalks and vegetables in the affected region. Northeastern India has been similarly hit after bamboo forests in Mizoram began blossoming in 2007. Local authorities declared the area a disaster zone but the Indian government has not yet announced plans to combat this bi-century rat storm.

Long-term trends and short-term shocks are both putting pressure on rice prices. Higher incomes across Asia are leading to increased consumption of grains and vegetables and of meat, which leads to more grain being diverted for use as cattle fodder. Production of biofuel further squeezes supply, while the drift off the land by workers and into industry curbs the supply of labor.

"There is less land, less water and less labor available for rice growing across Asia," says Macintosh. "Agricultural labor in countries like Thailand is increasingly shifting to industrial sectors. And rice is the most labor- and water-intensive crop."

In the shorter term, prices can spike as natural disasters ranging from severe drought and floods cause havoc on agriculture. The recent three-week snow storms in China caused $7.5 billion in damages, according to early government estimates, including destruction of winter crops leading to a $700 million relief package for farmers.

Asian countries are making different responses to domestic and international demand. Vietnam in the third quarter last year suspended exports to protect domestic needs amid insect epidemics, while in the other direction Thailand plans to auction an additional 500,000 tonnes of rice to cater to increasing international demand, particularly from Bangladesh and Pakistan. Thailand exported 800,000 tonnes of rice in January 2008, a 25% year-on-year increase.

As a long-term measure, food scientists are developing sturdier varieties of rice that can withstand climate challenges as well as higher yielding seeds.

Asia averages 3.6 tonnes of rice per hectare, according to the IRRI. Better yielding varieties will increase average output to six tonnes per hectare, particularly in Thailand, which grows rice across 9.8 million hectares but has the lowest rate of output in Asia - 2.6 tonnes of rice yield per hectare in the planet's largest area of land made available for rice cultivation. In contrast, China's produces six tonnes of rice per hectare and Japan has the global record at 6.2 tonnes.

The world's leading philanthropists are pitching in to combat the rising grain crisis, similar to supporting cancer and AIDS research. Leading the way, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates in January announced a grant of $19.9 million over three years to the IRRI. The grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation aims to first help 400,000 small farmers in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa access improved rice varieties and better growing technology.

Farmers may increase yields by 50% by 2018, but "there are no short-term solutions," says Macintosh of the IRRI.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JB14Df02.html

[GWR]

John Berthelsen
19 February 2008

The US decision to divert food crops for motor-fuel is proving a costly mistake – especially for Asia

What has long been predicted – that the US decision to push the use of corn to make biofuel would be a costly mistake – is starting to come true, especially for Asia, where inflation is spiking with an ugly force.

China reported on Tuesday that the increase in its Consumer Price Index hit 7.1 percent annually, driven partly by food, which accelerated to 18.2 percent annually in January from 17.7 percent in December

China’s disastrous cold spell gets the immediate blame for blocking thousands of kilometers of roadway and cutting power and transport links to tens of millions of people, collapsing more than 350,000 homes and causing direct economic losses of 111 billion yuan (US$15.5 billion) while damaging as much as 40 percent of the country’s rapeseed crop, the major source of cooking oil and animal feeds, which is driving up food prices.

Obviously there is more to Asian inflation than food prices. China’s Purchasing Price Index of raw materials rose by 8.9 percent year-on-year in January, with energy up 15.5 percent annually and power up 15.2 percent; ferrous metals rose 14.8 percent. But beyond that, world edible-oil and animal-feed prices have skyrocketed, with edible oil prices up overall by 63 percent for reasons that have nothing to do with China’s weather. Soybean oil is leading the price rise after soybean futures for May delivery on the Chicago Board of Trade rose to US$13.87 per US bushel last Friday, the highest price ever. Soybeans have surged by 85 percent alone in the past year. Palm oil is also up 71 percent annually.

Along with other culprits, including rising fuel use, the heart of the problem is the decision by the US government and other western governments to subsidize the production of ethanol and bio-diesel in an ill-considered strategy to cut greenhouse-gas emissions. Thomas Tanton of the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco was quoted as saying that by 2012 ethanol producers will receive as much as US$93 billion in subsidies, accountng for up to 65 percent of the market value of the product.

That has caused a precipitous decline in the amount of soybeans planted in the US as farmers switched to more lucrative crops. Some 16 percent of agricultural land formerly planted in soybeans and wheat is now being planted in corn, according to the US Department of Agriculture. More corn – 86.7 million acres (35 million hectares) in 2008 – is being grown in the United States today than at any time since World War II ended 63 years ago. There is a full 600,000 acres (242,800 hectares) more now than in 2007.

Because of it, environmentalist Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute wrote on January 24 that “the world is facing the most severe food-price inflation in history as grain and soybean prices climb to all-time highs. Wheat trading on the Chicago Board of Trade on December 17 breached the $10-per-bushel level for the first time ever. In mid-January, corn was trading at over $5 per bushel, close to its historic high. And on January 11, soybeans traded at $13.42 per bushel, the highest price ever recorded. All these prices are double those of a year or two ago.” (A US bushel is about 35.2 liters.)

As a result, Brown wrote, everything from bread to tortillas, not to mention pork, beef, poultry, milk and eggs, is soaring in price. In Mexico, he wrote, cornmeal prices are up 60 percent, and in Pakistan flour prices have doubled.

The soybeans that corn is replacing are about as close as it is possible to come to a miracle crop. Domesticated during the Chou Dynasty perhaps 3,000 years ago, they were designated one of China’s five sacred grains along with rice, wheat, millet and barley. Their deep root system makes them resistant to drought. Growing in long green rows perhaps a meter high, they actually take nitrogen from the air instead of requiring nitrogen fertilizer – a growing problem for the United States. Corn takes so much nitrogen fertilizer that, according to the US-based Environmental Working Group, 210 million pounds (95.4 million kilograms) of nitrogen-based fertilizer is running off Corn Belt states and eventually into the Mississippi River, where it is contributing to what is being called a dead zone some 7,900 square miles (nearly 20,500 square kilometers) in area that is so depleted of oxygen that fish and crustaceans are suffocating.

Despite their use in such products as diverse as composite building materials, miso, fox and mink feed, magnetic tape, rubber, margarine, foam insulation and mayonnaise, soybeans’ biggest use is for edible oils and soybean meal, virtually all of which is used as an ingredient to feed poultry, hogs and cattle. The US Department of Agriculture in December projected consumption at 2.988 billion bushels (105.3 billion liters) against year-end 2007 stocks of only 185 million bushels, providing no surplus for consumption during the 2008-09 market year. Demand is expected to outrun supply for at least the next three years.

That is being felt in Asia, which historically has been the biggest destination for American soybean farmers. With the exception of soybeans, China has become a major crop exporter, with 2.85 million metric tons of foodstuffs exported in 2006, vastly increasing to 7.7 million metric tons through November 2007. Despite its exports, China, however, is the world’s largest importer of soybeans and vegetable oil.

At the other end of the supply chain are at least 20 million Chinese who are moving into cities each year, increasing their wages and improving their diets, which usually means increased meat consumption, particularly after annual incomes hit about US$3,000. With roughly half the price of a helping of meat determined by what the animal eats, that means prices are going up rapidly. Much of that meat is produced from soybean meal, not only in pigsties across China but on vast cattle ranches in South America. Brazil produces 28 percent of the world’s soybeans and is the largest exporter, sending 41 percent of its crop overseas. Argentina is the third-largest producer and consumer.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization global food price index rose 40 percent in 2007, compared with 9 percent in 2006, spurring the FAO to warn of possible global food shortages for the first time since 1970. That is playing itself out across Asia. GDP across the region outside Japan is being revised down by about half a percentage point, while inflation is being up from 4.2 percent to 4.6 percent or more, presenting central banks with the dilemma of responding either by cutting growth by using high interest rates, or allowing inflation to increase in an effort to keep growth going.

Related Articles:

Selling Snake Oil with the Bio-fuels (http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=217&Itemid=38)
http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1056&Itemid=32

[Wisarut]

When I went to Big C for shopping on yeaterday evening, I have found that hte soy bean cooking oil has shot up from 30 Baht/bottle (1 liter) to 50 Baht/bottle (1 liter) with a quota of 3 bottles/family :eek:

The pork already shor up from 90 Baht/kg to 120-130 Baht/kg ... better eat chicke then ... even though even chicken is now in short supply

[GWR]

The Price of Pork skyrockets – we investigate

We have received a number of complaints from local residents of Pattaya regarding the sudden increase in price of Pork at local markets. We investigated this sudden and mysterious rise in the price of Pork and discovered that 1kg of Pork used to cost between 90 and 100 Baht. Recently this price has increased to between 130 and 140 Baht which represents a significant increase. A number of Foreign Tourists we spoke to have spotted the increase and do not appear to be too bothered about it; however we spoke to a number of Thai Tourists on Pattaya Beach who are concerned about the increase and will avoid eating Pork because of the price hike. We think that the price increase is due to the higher oil prices and we also understand that the Military-appointed Government approved a price increase for pork just before they transferred power to the new democratically elected government who are now under pressure to force a price reduction for pork before a pork surplus is created due to the higher price.

http://www.pattayacitynews.net/news_25_02_51_2.html

[jpatokal]

...who are now under pressure to force a price reduction for pork before a pork surplus is created due to the higher price.
OK, somebody failed Economics 101 here... :eek::confused::D

[GWR]

Why are wheat prices rising?

Wheat prices have hit record highs and tight supplies of the staple crop have ignited concern about rising food costs.

The price of higher-quality spring wheat jumped almost 25% on Monday - the biggest one-day increase to date.

The rise comes as the UN's World Food Programme warns that it will have to start cutting rations or feeding fewer people if it does not get more money to cope with the higher cost of food.

Wheat is used to make staple foods such as bread, pasta and noodles.

EXPORT CURBS

The main reason behind Monday's sudden rise in wheat prices was a decision by Kazakhstan to impose export tariffs to curb sales.


TOP FIVE WHEAT EXPORTERS
US
Russia
Canada
Argentina
EU
Source: Barclays

Kazakhstan, a big exporter of wheat, said the curbs would help it battle an inflation rate of nearly 20%.

The move follows similar restrictions imposed by Russia and Argentina.

"Politically, it's difficult for these countries to continue to export if prices are high domestically," said Sudakshina Unnikrishnan, agricultural analyst at Barclays Bank.

Last year, tens of thousands of Mexicans marched in a protest against the rising price of tortillas after the price of the flat corn bread soared by over 400%.

DROUGHT

World wheat stocks are expected to hit a 30-year low this year, partly driven by the worst drought in Australia in 100 years, which halved the winter wheat crop to 12 million tonnes in 2007.

Reports of drought and water shortages in north-west China, where most of the country's wheat is grown, have also spurred buying in recent days.

Unusually cold weather last year in places such as Ukraine also hurt production.

LAND FOR BIOFUELS

Demand for alternative energy sources has led farmers to sow less wheat and convert land to crops such as corn, sugarcane and rapeseed, that can be turned into biofuels.

Ethanol, diesel and other liquid fuels can be made from processing plant material.

But this means there is less land for growing food crops.

Wheat prices may come down as high prices convince farmers to devote more land to the crop, but this takes time.

GROWING DEMAND

In addition to the supply problems pushing up prices, there has also been growing demand.

Increasing wealth in China and India, for example, has led to consumers eating more meat, which means more grain is needed to feed farm animals.

The US Department of Agriculture forecasts that Chinese imports of pork will double over the next 10 years.

SPECULATION BY INVESTORS

Wheat prices have also soared as commodities have found favour among investors struggling with poor returns in other markets.

Stock markets have lost ground as the world economy slows and the fallout from the sub-prime crisis continues.

"There are a lot of non-commercial positions in the market but it's predominantly driven by fundamentals," said Ms Unnikrishnan.

"For three years production has been outstripped by consumption and grain stocks are tight."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/business/7264653.stm

BBC World Service Radio has reported, however, that wheat planting is now likely to soar globally. The reporter suggested that by the end of 2008, wheat production would likely outstrip demand. That said, the reporter called the current global wheat market "chaotic", and said that few market analysts were currently prepared to predict short-term and medium-term trends.

[GWR]

ECONOMY-CHINA: Staring At Grain Imports
By Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Feb 26 (IPS) - With global food prices on an upward spiral, China is facing renewed fears that its growing demand for grain to feed the world’s largest population may lead to imports from international markets, driving prices higher and spurring further food inflation.

The resurging "threat of China’s food security" may have induced more fatigue than alarm if it was not coming at a time of unprecedented scarcity of arable land, which is increasingly being converted to grow biofuels, and because of fresh challenges posed by global warming.

With its natural constraints -- it has to feed a fifth of the world’s population with less than one-seventh of the global farmland -- and its surging demand, China finds itself in the middle of a raucous debate about the future of global food security.

Since United States environmentalist Lester Brown stirred public imagination in 1995 with his apocalyptic predictions of China’s rising food hunger, the country has fought recurrent accusations that its demand may prove catastrophic by swamping world grain markets and causing food shortages in impoverished developing countries.

Delivering bumper harvests and shunning large imports have so far been the preferred ways for Chinese officials to demonstrate the country’s determination to continue with its long-term policy of self-sufficiency. The trend of increased annual harvests has run uninterrupted since 2004, clocking in more than 500 million tons of grain in 2007, including rice, wheat, corn and soybean.

"China is not a precipitator of the mounting increase in global wheat prices, but an important stabilising factor for it," Ding Shengjun, an official with the State Administration of Grain said in Beijing last week, responding to speculations that grain may follow the upward trajectory of oil. China’s unquenchable thirst for oil has been one of the main factors behind the surge of oil towards the sensitive 100 US dollars a barrel mark.

"The trend in China -- year-on-year grain output increases, a balanced supply-demand market, improved reserves and mild structural grain price increases -- is in sharp contrast with the global downturn in grain output and reserves," Ding said.

He went on to suggest that Beijing has tolerated small quantities of grain imports to diversity its domestic food supply while remaining largely self-sufficient.

Nevertheless, Chinese analysts have grown uneasy about the country’s increasing dependence on imports to satisfy demand for soybeans. Driven by its growing demand for meat in recent years, the country has emerged as the world’s biggest importer of soybeans and vegetable oil.

Before 1995 China was a net exporter of soybeans but in 2007 China imported more than 30 million tonnes of the commodity, which it uses mainly for animal feed. The demand reflects the country’s dietary changes resulting from greater prosperity in cities and towns where people these days consume more meat.

But the Chinese diet’s shift towards more meat has also boosted grain consumption, raising expectations that the country may be soon forced to import corn too. It takes four kilograms of grain to produce one kilogram of meat.

"I believe there is an ongoing soybean crisis, which is now affecting China’s entire food security and may even prove dangerous to the equilibrium of the whole economy," says agricultural market watcher Liu Chaoyang.

"Because of the country’s excessive dependence on imports for soybeans, China’s self-sufficiency rate is no longer the mandated 95 per cent but somewhere around 90 per cent."

To promote self-sufficiency, Beijing has done away with a policy spanning two thousands years of collecting grain tax from the peasants and has resolved to provide farmers with more subsidised fertilisers and seeds.

Reacting to rising global prices and inflation worries at home, China also raised export taxes and imposed export quotas on a range of grains and flour in December. Nevertheless, China’s inflation -- driven by food prices surges, is running at its highest in 11 years. China’s consumer prices in January surged 7.1 percent from a year earlier.

The food situation has been exacerbated by devastating snowstorms in January that have killed farm animals and damaged crops across a large part of the country. Partly because of the storms, China’s food prices in 2008 have risen 18 percent, higher than the 13 percent increase of grain commodities in Indonesia and Pakistan, and well above the 10 per cent increase in South America and other developing countries.

The scourge of high prices and natural disasters occurs at a time of rapid loss of arable land, prompting some Chinese analysts to speak of the "global scramble for farmland".

While Beijing is said to control the amount of cropland taken over to produce biofuels, in the last decade the country has lost 5.5 percent of its arable land to desertification and industrial expansion.

"Nearly 14 years have passed since Lester Brown raised the alarm on China’s land constraints but his warning has not lost its validity," says Song Yanming, member of the China National Association of Grain Sector.

Analysts warn that although China has managed to maintain a balance of supply and demand in three of its main grain commodities – wheat, rice and corn, the increasing imports of soybeans can at any moment disrupt its fragile equilibrium.

Some agricultural experts have even suggested that China should use its ample foreign exchange reserves, which stand at more than 1.5 trillion US dollars, to buy soybeans on the international market and raise the domestic soybean reserves to 50 million tonnes -- an equivalent to a year of China’s national soybean consumption.

"We can’t allow the soybean crisis to become the Archimedes point that would pry the Chinese economy," Wan Xiaoxi, an agricultural analyst with China Southern Fund, wrote in the China Business News.
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41345

[doseiai]

The Rice Exporters Association of Thailand said the free-on-board price of 100-percent Grade-B white rice surged to $469 a metric ton on Feb. 20 from $396 the month previous.

The FOB price of Thai white rice, 25-percent broken, rose to $448 a ton on the same date from $383 on Jan. 23.

The same type of Thai rice was trading at an average of $305 a ton in 2007, $269 a ton in 2006, $259 in 2005, $225 in 2004, and $176 in 2003, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.

The Philippines buys rice mostly from Thailand and Vietnam to augment its meager production of the cereal.

Vietnamese rice, 25-percent broken, was trading at $357 a metric ton in January 2008, more than double the 2003 average price of $167 a ton. Its price increased further to $400 a ton in February.

from : http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/?page=news5_feb29_2008


Scratch beneath the surface of major social or political upheaval - the French or Russian revolutions, Germany's military collapse in 1918 or more recently China's Tiananmen Square - and you will find that food shortages, brought about by crop failure, naval blockade or spiralling prices, lie at the heart of the matter.

guardian.co.uk: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/mar/02/agriculture.food

[doseiai]

First reports of starvation deaths in Southeast Asia....

Indonesians rally over soaring food prices, http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSJAK27109820080316

JAKARTA (Reuters) - About 500 Indonesian Muslims took to the streets of the capital to demand the government bring down food prices after media reports of cases of starvation.

The protesters, from the Muslim group Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia, marched through Jakarta's main streets to the presidential palace, chanting "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great).

The Surya newspaper said a schoolboy in East Java, who lived with his elderly grandmother in Magetan district, hanged himself in February because he could not bear the pain of starvation. Neighbors said the family was very poor.

Detik.co, news Web site earlier this month reported that a pregnant woman who lived in a rented room with her three children died because she had not eaten for three days.

"People have died of hunger, babies are suffering from severe malnutrition because they can't get proper treatment," Hizbut Tahrir spokesman, Muhammad Ismail Yusanto, told Reuters Television.

"How is it possible that in an agricultural nation that has been independent for more than 60 years, many people have died of hunger?"

Soaring global prices of rice and other staples are hitting Asia's poorest citizens. (Reporting by Reuters Television; Writing by Ade Mardiyati; Editing by Ahmad Pathoni)

[jpatokal]

First reports of starvation deaths in Southeast Asia....
Every single year there's plenty of starvation in Indonesia (http://www.topix.com/forum/world/indonesia/TBOGK0SMSN3TH6DBO):

13 million children suffer from starvation in Indonesia today. [2006]

Last year starvation in Papua made headlines, a few years earlier the tsunami was blamed, and of course in East Timor starvation was used as a tool of political control.

[doseiai]

Indonesia's food situation has never been pretty. But unlike those other years, this year, there is no natural disaster blamed, and its in Java, not some far flung province affected by a natural disaster or insurgency. It wasnt that there isnt enough food in the country, its that prices have risen above what the very poorest can afford. Also these are confirmed reports of DEATHS, not severe malnutrition. Your report of 13 million "suffering" from starvation means severe malnutrition (not to downplay that, its terrible too), but if that many people died, it wouldn't just be a statistic. The country wouldnt exist as it would be consumed by riots far worse than that of 1997 when the rupiah collapsed.

[TGunner]

It will get even worse in the near future once the full effects of global warming start to kick in. Rich people contribute the most to global warming, yet the people who will suffer the most from it will be the poor ones. It's sad and so unfair.

If the gov'ts around the world can't properly handle these future severe food shortages and price spikes, there will be worldwide riots and chaos. (And I'm usually a very optimistic person.)

[GWR]

Philippines faces rice shortage, seeks supplies

Manila (dpa) - Philippine authorities on Tuesday urged restaurants and fast-food chains to cut their rice servings amid a looming shortage of the country's staple food.

Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap noted that a lot of rice was actually wasted in restaurants and fast-food chains, where customers do not usually eat the whole one-cup serving.

"We are inviting them to participate with us in the rice conservation program," he said. "I'm asking fast-food restaurants to give their customer an option to order a half cup of rice."

Yap maintained there was still no shortage of rice in the country, noting that "our supply for now is just enough."

But Senator Manuel Roxas, a former trade secretary, urged the government to be more transparent about the looming rice shortage.

"It's safe to say that we have enough supply from January to September this year. Come November, where will we get our supply from?" he said. "We cannot depend on other countries' exports.

"I am raising a fair warning now because the people have the right to know whether we are facing a looming rice crisis," Roxas added. "Government must tell the truth and be accountable."

The Philippines is still struggling to source close to two million metric tons of rice this year amid a tight global supply and soaring prices.

Link may expire:
http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/breakingnews.php?id=126583

[GWR]

See also today's previous post in this thread.

Needy communities to receive rice

http://www.vientianetimes.org.la/FreeContent/New%20Folder/p1.jpg
[Photo: Vientiane Times - Mr Masaaki Miyashita (left) presents bags of rice to Mr Laoly Fayphengyoa in Vientiane yesterday.]

Families around the country who have lost their crops due to flooding and drought will receive rice to see them through the rest of the dry season.

The Japanese government yesterday presented about 6,399 metric tonnes of KR1 rice w orth 320 million yen (28.8 billion kip) to the Lao government for distribution to needy families around the country.

The rice was presented by the Japanese Ambassador to Laos , Mr Masaaki Miyashita, to the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, Mr Laoly Fayphengyoa, in Vientiane .

Japan extends assistance to Laos in many sectors through various aid modalities, Mr Miyashita said at the presentation ceremony.

He said the food aid firstly aims to assist Lao people suffering from serious food shortages, and secondly to bolster the socio-economic development of Laos through the Counterpart Fund.

The fund will be put to good use through important projects earmarked by the Lao government, Mr Miyashita said.

The Lao government is required to consult with the Japanese Embassy on how the food aid fund is to be used; the Embassy is always prepared to dis cuss this in a constructive manner.

Mr Miyashita said he hoped the rice would be distributed as quickly as possible, to the people who need it most.

The Japanese government has been donating KR1 rice to the Lao government since 1994. Laos has so far received about 118,475 metric tonnes of rice from Japan , worth about 3.8 billion yen (3,420 billion kip), Mr Laoly said.

He said these donations were very useful for the Lao government and people and the fund was a valuable contribution to socio-economic development.

The fund helps those who don't have enough rice to eat and those who have lost their crops because of drought, storms or flooding. It has provided food for many communities around the country and supplemented local crop production.

Mr Laoly said he would make sure the rice was used in accordance with the exchange of notes signed on March 20, 2007, between the Lao and Japanese governments.

By Phonesavanh Sangsomboun
(Latest Update March 19, 2008)
http://www.vientianetimes.org.la/FreeContent/FreeContent_Needy.htm

[GWR]

First reports of starvation deaths in Southeast Asia....
Indonesians rally over soaring food prices, http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSJAK27109820080316


RI actually already self-sufficient in rice : official

Banjarnegara, C Java, March 23 (ANTARA News) - Indonesia is now self-sufficient in rice as in 2007 it enjoyed a rice production surplus of over one million tons, an agriculture ministry official said.

"Having a surplus of more than one million tons from the 2007 rice harvest, Indonesia now can be categorized as a country self-sufficient in rice," the ministry`s director general of food crop plantation affairs, Sutarto Alimoeso, said here Saturday.

In this context, the national 2008 paddy production was expected to reach 61 million tons or five percent over the 2007 figure, he said.

Thus, he expressed optimism that the government would no longer conduct rice import this year because with last year`s rice procurement drive, Indonesia now had more than one million tons in stock.

Apart from that the National Logistics Agency (Bulog) now had the capacity to buy 1.6 milllion tons of farmers` rice.

"We hope Bulog will be able to absorb more farmers` rice if it works well," he said, hoping that through the 2008 procurement or collecting effort, Indonesia would have some 2 million tons of rice.

Referring to the increased food prices, Sutarto said farmers should be informed about the matter so they would be motivated to increase their production.

In addition, Media Indonesia daily in its headlines Saturday said world rice prices had continued to increase up to US$700 per ton, the highest level in the last 20 years.

The high price would threaten Asia, including Indonesia and other developing countries whose population of more than 2.5 billion depend on rice as their daily food, the daily said.(Antara)

Today In Asia : Last Update : 08:40:20 23 March 2008 (GMT+7:00)
http://enews.mcot.net/view.php?id=3408

[Wisarut]

Now, the government and Police Department in Thailand have asked FARMERS to put a guard on theri paddy warehouses since ther are the paddy robber gangs who are STEALING paddy due to the fact that the paddy price is now more than 10000 Baht/Kwian ... very high despite of the fact that it is harvesting season which is the period of cheap grain :eek:

[GWR]

Monday, March 24, 2008
Catch 22 in Hun Sen's so-called development policy: Farm sell-offs endanger Cambodian rice production

Farm sell-offs endanger Cambodian rice production

PHNOM PENH, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Rice production will be reduced in Cambodia if rice fields continue to be sold to be converted to business, factory or residential sites, the Mekong Times newspaper reported Monday, citing an Agriculture Ministry official.

"We are worried that, in the future, only non-fertile land will remain for cultivation because most of the rice fields will have been sold off," Kit Seng, director of the planning department of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

Uon Sophal, a farmer in Cambodia's Kampot province, said that if current land transaction trends continue, most farmland will end up in the hands of the rich.

"Then farmers will find it more difficult to afford food," he said. "I would like to appeal to farmers not to sell their land because this will cause a shortage of farmland and it will drive rice prices up, which will be a burden on the country."

Farms in Cambodia are currently run overwhelmingly by impoverished farmers, and because of this poverty they are often tempted to sell their land for ready cash, said Chey Siyat, a member of an agricultural NGO.

According to MAFF figures, 85 percent of Cambodia's population relies on agriculture for a living.

Cambodia produces 6 million tons of unhusked rice annually and there are 2.3 million hectares of rice paddy land.

Labels: Decreasing rice production, Increasing rice price, Land prices skyrocketting, Poverty, Reduction of rice farm lands

posted by Socheata at 10:00 AM
http://ki-media.blogspot.com/2008/03/catch-22-in-hun-sens-so-called.html

[jpatokal]

http://www.freshplaza.com/news_detail.asp?id=18287

India: Bumper crop set to bring down potato prices

After a long spell of rising food prices, here is some good news for consumers: potato will be cheaper in the months to come. Long winter season and better crop management has led to record potato production in West Bengal this year. According to advance estimates by the West Bengal government, potato production this year is likely to be around 80 lakh ton, an increase of nearly 60 per cent over last year's production of 50.52 lakh ton. The increase is despite the fact that the total area under potato declined from 4.67 lakh hectare last year, to 3.65 lakh hectare this year.

With the market likely to face an oversupply situation, potato prices are likely to remain low. The current market price of Jyoti Kufri variety is Rs 5 per kg, against Rs 7-8 kg last year. At the wholesale level, the price is close to Rs 160 per kg, against Rs 240 last year. Till now, only 25% of the potato crop harvested has come to cold storages. Earlier, most growers and traders were reluctant to store the crop as they feared a massive price crash, admitted Patit Paban Dey, vice-president of West Bengal Cold Storage Association.

[doseiai]

The potato production is good news...I wonder, 80 lakh tons is 8 million tons, or 3 million tons more than last year. So I wonder if that can substitute 3 million tons of rice for potato or if there are other issues such as storage, etc?

This is good news not just because its somewhere, but because West Bengal is adjacent to Bangladesh, which is really in a tight situation, atleast for the next few months until their next rice harvest due to the cyclone and flooding double whammy. Once the next harvest comes, the strain in that part of the world atleast should ease up a bit. However, world stockpiles won't recover for some time without large surpluses.

[Wisarut]

Now, the rice going up up up and AWAY ... as the news from Bangkok Biznews has shown:

200000 Ton of paddy is Missing out of the rice warehouses - 3.2 billion Baht damage
http://www.bangkokbiznews.com/2008/03/26/news_26031414.php?news_id=26031414

Jusmine rice goign up from 125 Bht/5kg sack to 150 Baht/5 kg sack -> 160 Baht/5 kg sack in April 2008! ... Even house bran rice at Big C - Carrefour-Tesco is goign up from 80-90 Baht/5 kg sack to 110 Baht/5kg sack

Jusmine rice at Khon Kaen Dec 2007 - 800 Baht/49 kg sack
Jan - March 2008 up 50-70 Baht / time
End of March 2008 - 1250 Baht/49 kg sack - alreayd hike 3 times (!)

Now, Thailanders have to eat rice at the prixce higher than export price ... sicne it has to put the pice for domestic rice high enough to slow down the export ... to prevetn massive exportation whcih can cause rice shortage ... at home

http://www.bangkokbiznews.com/2008/03/25/news_26023125.php?news_id=26023125

The paddy pruchase from farmer is 10800 Baht/Kwian (1 Kwian = 100 kg)
The milled rice (5% grade) for export is noe 19000 Baht/Kwian ...
Local Thai people have to purchase the rice at 20000 Baht/Kwian

Niow, ther ONLY 1 Million tyon of rice left for export
http://www.bangkokbiznews.com/2008/03/28/news_26049828.php?news_id=26049828

Noiw, I had purchase 5 kg of brown rice from rice store ... It cost mer about 125 Baht ...up from 100 Baht last year.... However, I heard that it is just a matter of time I need to spend MORE on the brown rice ... from 125 Baht to 150-200 Baht/5 kg sack in the next few Months

[Wisarut]

Now, the prices of rice are climbing

REF: Bangkok Biznews - 3 April 2008

Diomestic Rice - Baht/100 kg sack (Domestic Prices quoted in Daily Basis)
31 Mar 2008 1 Apr 2008 2 Apr 2008
100% White 2155 2205 2455
5% White 2105 2155 2405
25% White 2090 2140 2390

Export Price - US$/Metric Ton (Export Price quoted in Weekly Basis)

26 Mar 2008 2 Apr 2008
100% Jusmine 920 1009 US$/Metric Ton
100% White 624 795
5% Rice 611 774
25% Rice 596 740

Rice Seed in short supplied - Demoands for Chinart 1 type is 500 Tons but can suppy ONLy 20 tons ... Fake fertilizer is widespreaded ... have to use Manure as a substitute for fertilizer ...

Now, Water shortage is looming ... whne Royal Irrigation Dept askign Farmer ONT to grow rice due to water shortage ... they feel OUTRAGED that they are about to BURN down the local offices of Royal Irrigation Dept ... and seize the reserviors and canals to ensure that they got water for their rice ... and pushgi nthe water tappign of the Mekhong at the top agenda even though they could IGNITE the war with neighbor countries ... :eek:

[doseiai]

Rice Jumps to Record on Concern World Demand to Outpace Supply

By Glenys Sim (Bloomberg)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aHOvUKlN9ZH0&refer=home

April 3 (Bloomberg) -- Rice climbed to a record on speculation the 3 percent annual increase in global demand for cereals will outstrip supply as governments curb exports to prevent protests.

Rice, the staple food for about 3 billion people, rose as much as 2.8 percent in Chicago and has doubled in the past year. Demand has increased on rising imports by the Philippines, the biggest buyer, and as global food supplies lag behind demand growth fueled by China and India.

``A lot of what we're seeing at the moment is not related to production, but the fact that a number of countries are implementing trade restrictions,'' said Darren Cooper, a senior economist at the International Grains Council in London.

China, India and Vietnam have cut rice exports, and Indonesia has reduced import tariffs to protect food supplies and cool inflation. Rice in Chicago climbed 42 percent in the first quarter, more than all of last year's 33 percent gain. Record grain prices contributed to strikes in Argentina, riots in Ivory Coast and a crackdown on illicit exports in Pakistan.

Rough rice for May delivery rose 33 cents, or 1.7 percent, to $20.12 per 100 pounds at 11:23 a.m. on the Chicago Board of Trade, after the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization said global exports will drop 3.5 percent this year as nations curb sales. Rice earlier reached a record $20.35.

The World Bank estimates ``that 33 countries around the world face potential social unrest because of the acute hike in food and energy prices,'' Robert Zoellick, the bank's president, said on the organization's Web site. For these countries ``there is no margin for survival,'' he said.

Commodity Prices

Commodity prices are posting their seventh year of gains. The UBS Bloomberg Constant Maturity Commodity Index of 26 raw materials more than tripled in the past six years as global demand led by China outpaced supplies of metals and crops. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index of U.S. equities gained 21 percent over the same period.

``The international rice market is currently facing a particularly difficult situation with demand outstripping supply and substantial price increases,'' said Concepcion Calpe, a senior economist at the Rome-based FAO, an agency that seeks to achieve global food security.

Pakistan, the world's fifth-biggest rice exporter, may ship 15 percent less of the grain this year after a power shortage affected milling of paddy, Mohammad Azhar Akhtar, chairman of the Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan, said by telephone.

Grain Rallies

Eroding global inventories also have fueled rallies in corn, wheat and soybeans.

Corn has gained 71 percent in the past year, touching a record $5.9925 a bushel yesterday. Soybeans are up 64 percent in the past 12 months, reaching $15.8625 on March 3, the highest ever. Wheat rose to a record $13.495 a bushel on Feb. 27 and has more than doubled in the past year.

Indonesia, the world's third-largest rice producer, may join China, India, Vietnam and Egypt in curbing exports to secure domestic supplies, Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono said yesterday in a text message to Bloomberg News.

Consumer prices in China rose 8.7 percent in February, an 11-year high, and reached a 13-month peak in India. Food prices in China, based on a government index, jumped 28 percent in February, the most since July.

The United Nations warned in February that 36 countries, including China, face food emergencies this year, as stockpiles of grains such as rice drop to a 26-year low.

Vietnam Rice

The Vietnam Food Association has asked its members to stop signing new rice-export contracts between April and June, following Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung's directive to cut deliveries of the grain overseas.

Vietnam, one of the world's three biggest rice exporters, will reduce shipments this year to 4 million tons to ensure supplies domestically and curb inflation that's at its highest in more than a decade. The government also said it's considering a tax on rice exports.

Malaysia plans to step up efforts to import rice from other Southeast Asian nations to build reserves. The Philippines is buying the grain from an emergency regional stockpile and taking additional supplies from the U.S.

To contact the reporter for this story: Glenys Sim in Singapore at gsim4@bloomberg.net

It's interesting to note that "36 countries, including China", where China was singled out. It's no surprise to me that there are riots in Lhasa and Xinjiang now. This is a test for the Communist Party, although at this level I'm sure they can handle it, which means it will only be RAMPED UP FROM HERE. Lucky thing Thailand has the world's largest surplus of rice, and that thais like eating bugs for protein, so we quite a cushion. There main danger is if Burma implodes, and they all come streaming over here. If that happens, food supplies could become problematic. The noose is tightening around China, but a lot of collateral damage is occurring too, including millions of ordinary Americans who are gonna have a nasty surprise with revolving debt amidst rising prices, falling dollar, and credit crunch.

Power outage in Pakistan reducing rice yields? Sure...just like "sabotage" of oil pipelines in Nigeria and Iraq, or refinery "outages". Im not so easily fooled...this is a tool of political war. Free markets are in reality, controlled and used as political weapons. It's a major crime if ordinary people mess with the market, when nations do it its justified by every newspaper. US is smarter though, somehow me manage to fool millions that its actually free markets, that Las Vegas or Macau (or NYSE or Commodities Exchanges) is actually not controlled, whereas China is too overt in state control. We are all brainwashed in ECON 101 when we are taught that there are recessions and booms are a "natural" part of the economic "cycle". Reality is that its all "pump and dump" schemes by the rich and powerful to keep us, as well as other nations, from ever having a chance to become a rival. If we little people get trampled, we become a statistic, a small price for those who don't value the masses of human life. Thats what u and me and most of the people you see around are seen and used by the policymakers...just expendable asset statistics for wars for domination. I guess Stalin was right when he said, kill one and ur a murderer, kill a million, and its is just a statistic.

[Wisarut]

Now, thsoe from beton has to rely upon the subsidized Malay rice since Thai rice has become too expensive to purchase :eek:

http://www.komchadluek.net/2008/04/04/x_main_a001_197184.php?news_id=197184

[MBK]

My wife tells me that rice is now becoming suitable as a gift due to it's increase in price. :)

[Wisarut]

Now, the rice at Big C (Rajboorana branch) is 171 Baht/5 kg sack ... :eek:
It is a matter of time whne I have to purchase jusmine rice at 200 Baht/5 kg sack and brown rice at 250 Baht/5 kg sack

Rice exporters in Thailand are now willign to terminate the contrace since they are runnign out of stocked rice ...

[MBK]

Hi Wisarut.

What brand are buying for 171 baht?

We usually get Golden Phoenix which is one of the popular brands. Maybe we have to go back to mixing it in with one of the cheaper brands like we did when money was tight.

[Wisarut]

Hi Wisarut.

What brand are buying for 171 baht?

We usually get Golden Phoenix (Hong Thong rice from Jia Meng) which is one of the popular brands. Maybe we have to go back to mixing it in with one of the cheaper brands like we did when money was tight.

Wait unti I make a survey at Big C (Chaeng Watthana Branch) and I'll give you updated prices of rices.

BTW, 7-11 convenient stores are RUNNING OUT of rice ... so many have go shopping for rice at Lotus Express (convenient store version of Tesco Lotus) .... Even Big C and Tesco Lotus have imposed quota for purchasing rice, sugar, and cookign oil.

[Wisarut]

The potato production is good news...I wonder, 80 lakh tons is 8 million tons, or 3 million tons more than last year. So I wonder if that can substitute 3 million tons of rice for potato or if there are other issues such as storage, etc?

This is good news not just because its somewhere, but because West Bengal is adjacent to Bangladesh, which is really in a tight situation, atleast for the next few months until their next rice harvest due to the cyclone and flooding double whammy. Once the next harvest comes, the strain in that part of the world atleast should ease up a bit. However, world stockpiles won't recover for some time without large surpluses.

Now, We better mix our rice with yam, potato, mung bean seeds, taro, peanut seeds and sesame seeds or even bamboo seeds... since pure rice are in SHORT SUPPLY.

[Wisarut]

Now, I just pass the rice merchant shop and foudn that the Jasmine Rice is now 40 Baht/kg which impleid that the jasmine rice in 5 kg sack is now 200 Baht while one bushl of rice (15 kg) is now 600 Baht! :eek:

More will follow very soon ... just a matter of time when rice is 60 Baht/kg (300 Baht/5 kg sack) ! :eek:

[doseiai]

Rice prices may go up in Thailand, but Samak is not so stupid as to risk mass rioting here, Thais need NOT worry about themselves, but OTHERS for a change. But even now the surplus in this nation is SO HUGE that there is room to make a lot of money. You must remember that Thailand has enough rice to feed double its population, so if it banned exports, Thailand will replenish stocks in no time at all. Yes some people are hoarding, but really this game is just about making money while Thailand can. If things get bad, any Thai leader will protect the nation by limiting exports, which of course, would hit major buyers HARD (phils, indonesia, iran) , but Thailand will be spared.

Good news for a change :

As other staples soar, potatoes break new ground, Reuters.

LIMA (Reuters) - As wheat and rice prices surge, the humble potato -- long derided as a boring tuber prone to making you fat -- is being rediscovered as a nutritious crop that could cheaply feed an increasingly hungry world.

Potatoes, which are native to Peru, can be grown at almost any elevation or climate: from the barren, frigid slopes of the Andes Mountains to the tropical flatlands of Asia. They require very little water, mature in as little as 50 days, and can yield between two and four times more food per hectare than wheat or rice.

"The shocks to the food supply are very real and that means we could potentially be moving into a reality where there is not enough food to feed the world," said Pamela Anderson, director of the International Potato Center in Lima (CIP), a non-profit scientific group researching the potato family to promote food security.

Like others, she says the potato is part of the solution.

The potato has potential as an antidote to hunger caused by higher food prices, a population that is growing by one billion people each decade, climbing costs for fertilizer and diesel, and more cropland being sown for biofuel production.

To focus attention on this, the United Nations named 2008 the International Year of the Potato, calling the vegetable a "hidden treasure".

Governments are also turning to the tuber. Peru's leaders, frustrated by a doubling of wheat prices in the past year, have started a program encouraging bakers to use potato flour to make bread. Potato bread is being given to school children, prisoners and the military, in the hope the trend will catch on.

Supporters say it tastes just as good as wheat bread, but not enough mills are set up to make potato flour.

"We have to change people's eating habits," said Ismael Benavides, Peru's agriculture minister. "People got addicted to wheat when it was cheap."

Even though the potato emerged in Peru 8,000 years ago near Lake Titicaca, Peruvians eat fewer potatoes than people in Europe: Belarus leads the world in potato consumption, with each inhabitant of the eastern European state devouring an average of 376 pounds (171 kg) a year.

India has told food experts it wants to double potato production in the next five to 10 years. China, a huge rice consumer that historically has suffered devastating famines, has become the world's top potato grower. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the potato is expanding more than any other crop right now.

Some consumers are switching to potatoes. In the Baltic country of Latvia, sharp price rises caused bread sales to drop by 10-15 percent in January and February, as consumers bought 20 percent more potatoes, food producers have said. The developing world is where most new potato crops are being planted, and as consumption rises poor farmers have a chance to earn more money. "The countries themselves are looking at the potato as a good option for both food security and also income generation," Anderson said.

AFFORDABLE RAINBOW OF COLORS

The potato is already the world's third most-important food crop after wheat and rice. Corn, which is widely planted, is mainly used for animal feed.

Though most Americans associate potatoes with the bland Idaho variety, they actually come in some 5,000 types. Peru is sending thousands of seeds this year to the Doomsday Vault near the Arctic Circle, contributing to a gene bank for food crops that was set up in case of a global disaster. With colors ranging from alabaster-white to bright yellow and deep purple and countless shapes, textures, and sizes, potatoes offer inventive chefs a chance to create new, eye-catching plates.

"They taste great," said Juan Carlos Mescco, 17, a potato farmer in Peru's Andes who says he frequently eats them sliced, boiled, or mashed from breakfast through dinner.

Potatoes are a great source of complex carbohydrates, which release their energy slowly, and -- so long as they are not smothered with butter -- have only five percent of the fat content of wheat.

They also have one-fourth of the calories of bread and, when boiled, have more protein than corn and nearly twice the calcium, according to the Potato Center. They contain vitamin C, iron, potassium and zinc.

SPECULATORS AREN'T TEMPTED

One factor helping the potato remain affordable is the fact that unlike wheat, it is not a global commodity, so has not attracted speculative professional investment.

Each year, farmers around the globe produce about 600 million metric tonnes of wheat, and about 17 percent of that flows into foreign trade.

Wheat production is almost double that of potato output. Analysts estimate less than 5 percent of potatoes are traded internationally, and prices are mainly driven by local tastes, instead of international demand.

Raw potatoes are heavy and can rot in transit, so global trade in them has been slow to take off. They are also susceptible to infection with pathogens, hampering export to avoid spreading plant diseases.

...more: http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNews/idUSN0830529220080415?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0



Few people know the secret to the potato, which makes them really neat. Potato skins have more powerful antioxidants than most fruits and vegetables, much more than onions, tomatoes, and carrots, and more vitamin C than an orange. Of course, if the potato is cooked or the skins thrown away, you are just getting carbs without all the good stuff. And frying skinless potatoes makes them quite unhealthy. The problem is how we commonly prepare potatoes, not their nutrition content.

[GWR]

See also today's previous post.

Lost: 200,000 tonnes of rice

Government sources said on Monday $100 million worth of rice has gone missing from national warehouses.

At the same time, rice farmers who still have stocks have openly hoarded the staple, refusing to sell their reserves in a market where prices continue to rise.

Official Thai News Agency, quoting Benjamas Kotenongbua a Bank of Thailand official "deeply acquainted with the rice trade" reported that increasing rice prices in the local market have prompted numerous farmers and middlemen to slow, stall or simply stop selling paddy rice to millers, a move which eventually affects exporters.

Ms Benjamas said a total of 200,000 tonnes of rice is missing from warehouses nationwide. Damages were estimated at approximately 3.2 billion baht, about US$101.1 million.

The government has 2.1 million tonnes of rice in stock to ensure supplies to the local market. This is less than half of the stockpile held last year, which was about 4.4 million tonnes.

The government-sponsored mortgage programme for the 2007-2008 rice season attracted a mere 240,000 tonnes of rice for exporter stocks, compared to earlier estimates of 8 million tonnes, said Ms Benjamas, a senior economist at the central bank's northeastern office in Khon Kaen.

The major reason for the sharp drop of rice participation in the programme was soaring rice prices, which have persuaded farmers and middlemen to hold their rice.

This has affected exporters, according to Ms Benjamas.

In the first three months of this year, exports totaled 3.26 million tonnes, up 166.2 per cent from the 1.96 million tonnes shipped in the corresponding period in 2007.

The target rice export for the whole year was originally set at 8.75-9 million tonnes.

Deputy Prime Minister and Commerce Minister Mingkwan Saengsuwan said last week that Thai jasmine rice - khao hom mali - is currently priced around 34,600-36,000 baht per tonne (US$1,091-1,135), with 5 per cent white rice at 26,400-26,700 baht per tonne (US$832-842), and paddy at 17,000-18,000 baht per tonne (US$536-567).
http://www.bangkokpost.com/topstories/topstories.php?id=127108

[Wisarut]

Big C has imposed Quota of ONLY 3 sacks/family/day, and
3 Bottles/family/day on the follwoing commondities.

100% Jasmine Rice - 200 baht/5kg sack
5% Rice - 150 Baht/ 5 kg sack
Brown Rice - 63 Baht/ 2 kg sack
Brown Sugar - 24 Baht/kg
White Sugar - 17.50 Baht/kg
cooking oil (palm) 47.00 Baht/1 litre bottle
cooking oil (Bran) 49.50 Baht/1 litre bottle
cooking oil (Soy Bean) 49.50 Baht/1 litre bottle
cookign oil (Sunflower seed) 93.50 Baht/1litre bottle
Fish Source (Golden Scale) 32.50 Baht/700 mm bottle
Fish Source (Red Scale) 24.50 Baht/700 mm bottle
Fish Source (Squid Brand) 22.50 Baht/700 mm bottle
Fish Source (Razor Clam) 20.50 Baht/700 mm bottle

[MBK]

Think the sugar limit has been around for a while now at many of the big supermarkets but I hardly use sugar so no problem for me. :)

No limits on anything at Jusco. It's not as big as Tesco or Big C but the area where they have their rice is stacked as high as ever so no shortage there. The Golden Phoenix was 147 baht for the 5 kg pack, the one with 210 stamped on the packet so no need to panic buy just yet.

[Wisarut]

Think the sugar limit has been around for a while now at many of the big supermarkets but I hardly use sugar so no problem for me. :)

No limits on anything at Jusco. It's not as big as Tesco or Big C but the area where they have their rice is stacked as high as ever so no shortage there. The Golden Phoenix was 147 baht for the 5 kg pack, the one with 210 stamped on the packet so no need to panic buy just yet.

Well, the rice at Big C has show sign that the food shortage is now a reality ... even thoguh the sugar is not showing the sign of shortage yet

[MBK]

Is it really a genuine shortage or just a means of limiting people from stockpiling in order to profiteer. The idea of a rice shortage in Thailand seems silly to me (not talking about the export market). How many families need more than 3 sacks of rice per day? Do all those family operated roadside stalls really go through more than 3 sacks a day? I suppose some do but I'd be surprised if the majority do. They would need to have more than the one rice cooker that most seem to survive on. Still plenty of stock at Jusco I'm told but maybe I'd better wander over for a looksee just in case...

[GWR]

April Fuel
Harrison George
18 April 2008
Alien Thoughts

Two days ago the British government played a cruel hoax on its people. And it’s over two weeks too late to be an April Fool prank.

From this time forward, all petrol sold in the UK must contain at least 2.5% of what the government, the media and the industries involved misleadingly call ‘biofuel’. And think yourself lucky that you’ve got me here to tell you this. A recent survey revealed that 90% of Britons are blissfully unaware of what is going into their tanks.

Let’s deal with the language problem first.

Bio, as a prefix, means life. And, naturally, it has a positive image. Advertisers in the cosmetics business, or cleaning products, are happy to find some way of sticking a ‘bio-’ prefix onto some word on the packaging of the their products. So your average consumer is supposed to think that biofuels are something to do with life. Far nicer idea than that associated with ‘fossil’ fuels.

But a more accurate term might be ‘agro-fuels’. Now this is bit less attractive. It makes one think, quite correctly, that these fuels are agricultural in origin, that they have been produced in preference to what agriculture normally produces – food. Which is perfectly true, and we’ll come back to that in a minute.

Now one of the reasons why something like this needs a misleadingly innocuous name is the same all those other tricks of the advertising world – it’s basically a con.

The British government (who, to be fair, are only following an EU directive) (which, to be even fairer, was something the British government supported), want to show that they are doing their bit for climate change. If you replace the burning of fossil fuels with the burning of agro-fuels, even it’s only by one-fortieth, well, it’s a start, right?

But see how the debate has been subtly shifted. The question is about what we should be burning, not about whether we should be burning anything.

Richard Branson knows a thing about diverting the public’s attention away from the real issue to what he wants them to think about. So he had the wheeze of flying one of his Virgin Atlantic jumbos from London to Amsterdam using agro-fuel to supply one of the 4 engines. The media obligingly focussed our attention on a technical question, a question barely any of us knew existed until then. Had Old Beardie cracked the problem that most agro-fuels freeze up at altitude (which of course he had).

Left unanswered, because it was never asked, was the question why you need to fly a 747 to Holland in the first place when you can get there by train at the cost of a couple more hours. (In fact, if you’re flying out of Heathrow’s Terminal 5, the train looks a lot surer option.)

Planes have been a prominent feature if the climate change debate. We might, with enough will, money and effort, replace carbon fuels with energy from solar, wind, tide, whatever, for most of our energy needs. But you’re never going to get planes flying off batteries, or solar panels, or very, very large sails. Planes need fuel, and burning fuel is what we can no longer do in any quantity.

Flying (except maybe by balloon) looks like it will have to disappear from the average person’s travel options. Unless we swallow this con that what’s important is not burning hydrocarbons, whatever their source, but what kind of hydrocarbons we burn.

Agro-fuels are a chimera. There is a bewildering variety of source materials and end products, but in many cases the energy you create is less than the energy you use in the conversion process. They only look good because people might be easily convinced that the emissions created from what started out as corn or sugarcane or oil palm nuts or just agricultural waste will, by a miracle of nature, in some distant future, turn back into corn and sugarcane and so on.

So, we are then encouraged to think, we can carry on as normal. Keep the air-con on all day and night, eat more and more meat, and fly wherever and whenever we want. The tourism industry does not blush when it forecasts an increase in flights of 6% a year, which will double aircraft emissions in less than a generation.

But that is exactly the problem. We can’t carry on as normal. We have to cut back burning fuel, of whatever kind, to next to nothing.

And the great British public may not know what they’re buying at the pump, and they are even alarmingly ignorant about where the raw materials for agro-fuels come from and the environmental effect this is having. But they do know that splashing a bit of agro-fuel into the mix won’t do it. They overwhelmingly support the idea of government-mandated fuel efficiency for cars, and of improved public transport. Of the 55% who known what agro-fuels are, only 1 in 7 think they are the best way of solving the problem.

Basically they seem to be buying into the idea that things have to change and it’s not just a question of clever capitalists finding a new way of making money from business more or less as usual.

Because the detour of agro-fuels isn’t just a blind alley in the search for ways of keeping the planet liveable. By diverting land and resources away from food, agro-fuels are ensuring that when we start to fry, we will be a select bunch. The poor will already be dead of starvation.

http://www.prachatai.com/english/news.php?id=594

[doseiai]

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2008/04/20/2003409723

In Haiti, where three-quarters of the population earns less than US$2 a day and one in five children is chronically malnourished, the one business booming amid all the gloom is the selling of patties made of mud, oil and sugar, typically only consumed by the most destitute.

“It’s salty and it has butter and you don’t know you’re eating dirt,” said Olwich Louis Jeune, 24, who has taken to eating them more often in recent months. “It makes your stomach quiet down.”

Can this be true? Mud pies, literally? I really can't imagine that...bugs yes as they have protein, so stomach enzymes can digest it and make some use of it, but mud???

[Wisarut]

Is it really a genuine shortage or just a means of limiting people from stockpiling in order to profiteer. The idea of a rice shortage in Thailand seems silly to me (not talking about the export market). How many families need more than 3 sacks of rice per day? Do all those family operated roadside stalls really go through more than 3 sacks a day? I suppose some do but I'd be surprised if the majority do. They would need to have more than the one rice cooker that most seem to survive on. Still plenty of stock at Jusco I'm told but maybe I'd better wander over for a looksee just in case...

I havbe seen photo taken at Carrefour in Post Today (21 April 2008) -> now, ONLY one type of sticky rice is still in the shelf .. the rest are SOLD OUT ... and wait for the new prices ...

[jpatokal]

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2008/04/20/2003409723

Can this be true? Mud pies, literally? I really can't imagine that...bugs yes as they have protein, so stomach enzymes can digest it and make some use of it, but mud???

Yes, certain types of clay are edible. It was an Incan staple, and North Koreans on gulags also figured it out:

http://www.qosqo.com/qosqo/agricult.shtml
http://judiciary.senate.gov/testimony.cfm?id=292&wit_id=665

Presumably the clay itself has close to zero nutritional value, but it fills up your stomach, and at least these "cookies" apparently have oils and other fats added.

Here's a better story on Haiti, complete with yum-yum picture:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22902512

And Wikipedia:

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

[GWR]

Give us This Day a Free Market for Our Daily Bread
Harrison George
02 May 2008
Alien Thoughts

The Shadow Boxing column by Korn Chatikavanij in the Bangkok Post of 8 April contains the statement that ‘the best way of ensuring there will be no shortage [of rice] is to trust in the market mechanism’.

Such steadfast ideological faith in free market capitalism would be admirable in a religion. Unfortunately the belief that problems of food supply and distribution can be solved by the magic of the invisible hand flies in the face of the facts – facts which include the deaths of millions.

Consider 3 famous famines.

During the Great Hunger, or Irish potato famine, of the middle of the 19th century, the population of Ireland shrank by 20-25% due to death and emigration. Yet during the period of the most widespread hunger, Ireland continued to export food. It is believed the exports of some food products actually grew during the famine.

The reasons why a starving country could not eat the food it was producing are easy to see. The owners of the land producing the food (overwhelmingly absentee landlords who controlled Irish representation at Westminster) were responding to market signals. The destitute poor of Ireland could not afford to buy this food. The export markets could. The food went to the highest bidder, the landlords extracted maximum profit (as good capitalists should) and the poor starved to death.

An earlier famine in 1782-3 had been mitigated by a ban on exports, resulting in an immediate fall in food prices. The free marketeers of 1845 would countenance no such artificial government restriction on trade. Record-keeping was rudimentary at the time, but best estimates are that three-quarters of a million died of starvation and disease.

The great Bengal famine of 1943 resulted in between 1.5 and 3 million deaths. Although the rice harvest of that year was lower than 1942, it was still better than 1941, when there had been no famine. Nobel Economics Laureate Amartya Sen argues that the famine was caused by the fact poor rice consumers had insufficient money to buy and that producers could earn more by exports, which again were not halted by any market-distorting government fiat.

The famine in northern Ethiopia in 1984-5 (made famous through the Band Aid concerts) occurred after Ethiopia was persuaded by USAID to liberalize trade in food, and rely on international markets for food security. During the famine, Ethiopia was trying to play this game by exporting high-value crops like green beans to affluent European consumers. This situation cost an estimated 1 million lives.

Now in all these examples, there were confounding factors. Ireland suffered an appalling mal-distribution of land, a soaring birth-rate and a generally hostile government in London. Bengal in 1943 was part of an empire at war, with military stockpiles and disruptions to normal trade. Ethiopia also suffered conflict and a government that blatantly manipulated agricultural information for its own ends. It can be argued that no case was a perfect example of free market economics. But where market mechanisms were allowed free rein, the situation worsened, and the deaths multiplied.

But neither has the rice trade in Thailand been an exercise in completely free markets. Prices on the world market are grossly distorted by US subsidies to its growers in Texas and Louisiana, most of whose production is for export. That has a knock-back effect on Thai domestic prices, pushing them down. The Thai government is happy with this since it has had an abiding interest in keeping domestic prices low. This may beggar farmers but it allows urban employers (and the government is the biggest) to push wages low and helps keep Thai labour ‘competitive’ in the world market.

Khun Korn argues that the Democrats, if in power, ‘would not send signals that there could be a shortage’. That and a refusal to consider other government ‘interference in the market’, he says, will prevent hoarding.

But the people best placed to know if there is a shortage are the same people with every market incentive and opportunity to hoard. No rice trader in his right mind will change market strategy just because the government, Democrat or otherwise, claims there is no shortage when his own information tells him there is. Or could be. ‘Hoarding’, which can undoubtedly exacerbate hardship, is a perfectly rational market reaction to anticipated shortage.

It may shock investment bankers and others whose understanding of economics is dominated by a capitalist perspective, but an economic system based on ‘free markets’ is not the way most of the world has been run for most of its existence and there is strong evidence that it is not the way most of its inhabitants want it to be run, especially when it comes to the essentials of life.

The most popular Thai government policy by far in the past 30 years must be the 30-baht health insurance scheme. This effectively took a large slice of health care out of the market economy. Instead of being allocated on the basis of ability to pay, basic health care goes to those who need it. The medical staff, hospitals, drugs and equipment still need to be paid for, but access to these is no longer by market mechanisms.

People the world over, including the vast majority of the US, believe this is the way health care should be provided. Many of society’s other needs should, in the opinion of the majority, not be sold on the market – from education and religious services to street lighting and national defence.

And perhaps the largest mass organization in the world, Via Campesina, with an estimated 150 million members, has consistently argued against liberalization of the trade on food.

Perhaps the time has come to recognize that basic food is a right, not a commodity, and that ensuring the right to sufficient food to maintain life is not something that should be bought and sold to the highest bidder.

http://www.prachatai.com/english/news.php?id=622

Via Campesina's Website:
http://www.prachatai.com/english/news.php?id=622

Via Campesina on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via_Campesina

[doseiai]

PM Samak now wants to start a "rice cartel". What a greedy, cruel and heartless thing to do. This is in the face of millions at risk of starvation. Also, Thai hoarders despite knowing their country is a major rice producer, are hoarding rice. Again, Thai hoarders never think of anyone but themselves.:mad: Thai people have a victim mentality, but don't realize when they are the aggressor. People need to wake up and say, "Yes, what I AM DOING is wrong too". What happened to compassionate Thais? All I see is greed, greed, and more greed now. Yes, when YOU hoard, YOU are contributing to the KILLING. I wish someone can translate that sentence in Thai. I realize its a matter of "better someone else than me", but Thailand ISN'T at risk, so no reason to make things worse for everyone else. Why doesn't anyone listen to their own King, who has been saying for 50 years, "take only what u need".

What is the effect of these policies on the poor the world over?

Relief officials fear that 1 billion impoverished people worldwide will be hurt for a generation as they have less to spend on medical care and education. Illnesses will spread and fewer children will attend school, according to John Holmes, the UN's emergency-aid chief.

``It is the perfect storm of rising hunger and lack of availability of food,'' Holmes said in an interview. ``It is serious, it is structural, it will last a long time, and we don't have any experience in how to deal with it.''

As many as 9 million Ethiopians in a nation of 80 million that is sub-Saharan Africa's second-most populous will need emergency food aid this year, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development. That is six times more than the 1.4 million fed last year by the Rome-based World Food Program.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=awQa3W2JGBWw&refer=news

[Wisarut]

PM Samak now wants to start a "rice cartel". What a greedy, cruel and heartless thing to do. This is in the face of millions at risk of starvation. Also, Thai hoarders despite knowing their country is a major rice producer, are hoarding rice. Again, Thai hoarders never think of anyone but themselves.:mad: Thai people have a victim mentality, but don't realize when they are the aggressor. People need to wake up and say, "Yes, what I AM DOING is wrong too". What happened to compassionate Thais? All I see is greed, greed, and more greed now. Yes, when YOU hoard, YOU are contributing to the KILLING. I wish someone can translate that sentence in Thai. I realize its a matter of "better someone else than me", but Thailand ISN'T at risk, so no reason to make things worse for everyone else. Why doesn't anyone listen to their own King, who has been saying for 50 years, "take only what u need".

What is the effect of these policies on the poor the world over?



http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=awQa3W2JGBWw&refer=news

Ai Samak want to please the farmer voters along with the money from rice merchants ... clear and simple ... Same farmers in the North and Isan said they want to go for full scale War with neighbor coutnries to get more and more water durign the drought ... and it is a duty for PM and senators to satisfy the voters ... clear and simple...

This kind of belligerent and childish thoughts of chicken hawk will eventually take those peasants to confront with the real bitterness of War for sure! Just liek thsoe Thai Armed Forces and civilians have faced the bitterness of War during WWII.

[doseiai]

Burma as you all know has been hit hard by a cyclone. Far from Samak's dream of expanding Burma's rice production and joining a cartel, production has been wiped out.

So a new rice crisis is now born in Burma. This is happening just as Bangladesh was getting back on its feet from a cyclone hit last year. Despite Bangladesh being desperately poor and lowland, it seems better prepared for crises like these than Burma, if only from experience. 10,000 dead in just one coastal town, but from pics, the entire delta was flooded. This is Burma's tsunami.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/DC603688-8C54-4C28-8D19-41562F1DF86F.htm

[GWR]

Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Cambodian dogs latest victims of global food crisis

May 14, 2008
DPA

Phnom