Rice Panic

So… while folks have been fretting about whether Jane Fonda’s torpedoing Obama, or whether we’re all about to start eating one another, there’s been some grim global-economy news.

The NY Times tells us there have been food riots in Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen in recent months, and there are rising fears of civil unrest:

HANOI — Rising prices and a growing fear of scarcity have prompted some of the world’s largest rice producers to announce drastic limits on the amount of rice they export.

Vietnam’s government announced here on Friday that it would cut rice exports by nearly a quarter this year. The government hoped that keeping more rice inside the country would hold down prices.

The price of rice, a staple in the diets of nearly half the world’s population, has almost doubled on international markets in the last three months. That has pinched the budgets of millions of poor Asians and raised fears of civil unrest.

From the Asia Sentinal, we learn that farmers in several countries are now guarding their fields at night to prevent theft. Higher fuel costs, pests, cold, flooding — even US and European biofuel programs — are, in combination, setting up a global disaster.

Taken altogether, it looks like US rice farmers are fixin’ to have a bonanza — at least, the ones who are still in business.

On the good news side (and one has to strain to see it) — the 3 or 4 farmers still growing rice in my little corner of the globe are gonna have a really good year.