Rice Shortage Hits US: Wal-Mart Starts Rationing

Today there is an article on NBC4 from WashingtonDC that is explaining that Wal-Mart and Sam's Club has started to ration rice purchases to 4-bags a visit in their stores. This is due to our global rice shortages causing food riots in other countries. Australia's rice crops suffered a drought, and Asia has had a rice crop shortage for some time now with details in an earlier Times article about rice shortage.

In America, the average person consumes about 25-pounds of rice per year, while in other areas of the planet rice makes up over half of everything that is eaten. A rice shortage in Asia can have consequences for those of us on this continent because rice importers are beginning to cut back on what they will let us have.

At our grocery stores with this rice shortage, we can probably expect to see some more increases in prices, beyond the 50% that rice has already gone up over the last few weeks. Foods like Rice Krispies, rice flour products, and American beer will be passing on the raising cost of rice to consumers.

American beer brewing with rice is not the only "hidden" rice shortage product that we deal with daily. Rice hulls are used in potting soils, animal bedding, and litter box products. In some areas, rice is used somehow in steel production, and various other manufacturing adventures. Some clothing includes rice fibers, some leather tanners include rice oils, and some rugs include rice stalks. Rice shortage items are numerous.

Today's rice shortage rationing announcement at Wal-Mart in America might just be the beginning for us. The situation with a drought in Australia stopping rice production may not correct itself overnight with our global warming issues. In Asia, people have consumed more rice than production for some years now. There are no easy answers to the question of where this necessary food product is coming from in the future.

I've seen comments on the internet chat-boards about this rice shortage situation, and some seem to be joking about how silly the rest of the word is to be needing rice for over 50% of their diet. This doesn't seem to be a laughing matter that crops are beginning to suffer from our global warming situation and the diseases related to this warming problem. This rice shortage is happening through nature, it is not a man made event.

America, along with every other continent on the planet (except Antarctica) grows rice. About 50% of our rice crops are exported, and we are only ranked as the 12^th rice producing country on the planet. Rice can be grown in your backyard garden if you have heavy clay soils that will hold water. Perhaps, if this rice shortage continues, we'll all be searching for those rice gardening directions on the internet?