Food Shortages Hitting US Stores?

By Cernig

Via Raw Story, I see the New York Sun has a rather sensationalised story about food rationing coming to America. It's not that bad - yet. But the story does have enough anecdotal evidence of localised shortages that suggest the longer-term trend could be quite worrying. In some California outlets, shoppers are being limited to one large bag of rice as demand outstrips supply, whereas on the East coast there are spot shortages in oil and flour.

What is true, however, is that there are major shortages elsewhere in the world right now:

Spiking food prices have led to riots in recent weeks in Haiti, Indonesia, and several African nations. India recently banned export of all but the highest quality rice, and Vietnam blocked the signing of a new contract for foreign rice sales.

The crunch point will be the failure or success of the American harvest. America is still indeed the breadbasket of the world but if the U.S. harvest comes in under par then a lot of people worldwide are going to starve as food prices skyrocket. You still won't see actual rationing in the U.S. although higher prices will amount to the same thing for poorer folks but across the Third World there will be widespread famine - and the destabilising migrations, wars and disease that always come with such a famine.

Comments

[Turkey Turkey Turkey]

Now would be a good time to follow the European lead and reconsider ethanol mandates.

Dismantling farm subsidies wouldn't hurt, either.

[carol]

I live in southern alabama, and prices are getting out of control. Wal-Mart is the single grocery store available in my little town, and there's still one locally owned store that I shop at, but for some things, I am forced to go to Wal-Mart.

The box of tilapia (4lbs) I bought last week at Wal Mart for $9.98 is $13.92 this week. At the locally owned grocery store chicken (bone-in split breast, about 3-4 lbs) was $4.65 last week; this week, I paid $7.67.

When groceries like that rise $4 over the course of a week, it is very scary to me. I seriously almost cried in front of my kids at the store, because it feels like we're scraping by already. What is on the horizon?

[1MaNLan]

The tangled web is becoming a Gordian knot...