Rice Shortage

There has been non-stop talk of impending rice shortages in this country this past month. One local person opined that it was just the government’s way of diverting people’s attention from its other shenanigans. That may well be, but I also read an article about local merchants already talking to rice distributers on the island south of here (country B) about buying rice from that country and importing it. In turn, news in country B has bemoaned the fact that they are still not self-sufficient in rice production and must import so many tons each year. They say the government will be intensifying efforts to improve rice production this year. Meanwhile, yet another article said that a leading bulk food store chain in the US would be limiting the quantities of rice its members could buy.

I went to the grocery store today and the bins of rice seemed to be normal quantities. The price has increased significantly in the last month but it is not clear how much is due to shortages and how much is due to a recent law requiring that all white rice sold here has to be iron fortified. Somebody has to pay for the iron and I doubt it is the merchant or the government.

As an aside, the iron fortification law apparently was a response to a report that a high number of people in this country are anemic. Since everybody eats rice, it was decided that the rice had to be iron fortified. The “iron fortification” consists of rice grain sized grayish pellets that are to be mixed with the raw rice and cooked. The pellets sort of dissolve in water and then seems to be like powdered iron tablets. Most people, however, do not like it. They say it makes the rice look dirty no matter how many times you wash it, makes the cooking water gray, and they don’t like the taste, plus it makes the cooked rice slightly gritty. Merchants have to comply with the law but recently many have tried to make the product more saleable by not premixing it. Instead they are putting small packets of iron fortification pellets into the 1, 5, and 10 kilo bags of rice and letting people mix it in themselves. I suspect most of it ends up in the trash. Anyway, I am sure that those packets of iron pellets are at least one of the reasons the price of rice has risen.

To make it all even more bizarre, while in country B last month, the rice farmers were complaining about how cheap their rice sells for while the price of fertilizer and pesticides keeps going up.

In both countries they say it has been raining a lot and so the crops aren’t as good as usual.

So, what gives? Is there really a rice shortage?