Price "rice"

REPLENISHED: Staff at the same NTUC outlet at Toa Payoh Hub restocking shelves with rice. Rice sales continue to be brisk despite government assurances that there is an ample stockpile of the grain. -- ST PHOTOS: LIM SIN THAI, BRYAN VAN DER BEEK

Is your mother one of those who stock up rice? There is a mad rush to buy rice in view that there will be a shortage. However, the Singapore government assured that there will be enough rice for Singaporeans.

THAI SUPPLIES SECURE Singapore is a small importer and buys mainly higher grades of Thai rice not subject to export curbs. 'As long as we can pay the market price, we will be able to get supplies,' said Mr Iswaran.

Food is about affordability. Therefore there is variation in food consumption because of different purchasing power of countries.

A potent mix of growing populations and economies; a switch from food to biofuel crops; droughts and diseases; and a lack of new technology in crop yields, have hit the poor hardest.


BASIC NEED: The Philippines, the world's biggest buyer of rice, has been hardest hit in Asia, by its rocketing price. -- AFP


FACTORS CAUSING PRICE SPIKES
EXPERTS pinpoint a host of reasons for the food crisis, besides speculation and hoarding:

BOOM IN DEMAND
Rising affluence in India and China has increased demand.
'China's population is proportionately much larger than the countries that industrialised in earlier periods and is almost double that of the current G-7 nations combined,' the Australian central bank said last year.
The Chinese, whose rise began in earnest in 2001, ate just 20kg of meat per capita in 1985. They now eat 50kg a year. Each kilogram of beef takes about 7kg of grain to produce, which means land that could be used to grow food for humans is being diverted to growing animal feed.

BIOFUEL TROUBLE
As the West seeks to tackle the risk of global warming, a race towards greener fuels is compounding the world's food woes. The US has a mandate to produce nine billion gallons of ethanol, made from corn, this year and 10 billion gallons in 2009.
'Turning food into fuel for cars is a major mistake on many fronts,' said Ms Janet Larsen, director of research at the Earth Policy Institute. It has led to higher food prices in the US and in developing countries 'where it's escalated as far as people rioting in the streets', she said.
Similarly, palm oil is at record prices because of demand to use it for biofuel, hurting low-income families in Indonesia and Malaysia, where it is a staple.

UNFAVOURABLE WEATHER
Erratic weather, perhaps due to climate change in grain-producing countries has played havoc with crops.
A severe 10-year drought in major wheat exporter Australia lit a fire under the wheat market.
Harvests have been affected by drought and heatwaves in South Asia, Europe, China, Sudan, Mozambique and Uruguay, the UN's World Food Programme said in November last year.

RISING OIL PRICES
Record oil prices have boosted the cost of fertiliser and freight for bulk commodities. Stung by the high transportation costs, food makers have passed some of the high crop prices to consumers.
The oil price spike has also turned up the pressure for countries to switch to biofuels, which the FAO says will drive up the cost of corn, sugar and soya beans.

CURB ON EXPORTS
A number of governments, including Egypt, Argentina, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, Thailand, India and China, have imposed restrictions to limit grain exports and keep more of their food at home and guarantee domestic supply.
The Vietnam Food Association has asked its members to stop signing new rice export contracts. Malaysia plans to import rice from other South-east Asian nations to build reserves.
The Philippines is buying the grain from an emergency regional stockpile and taking additional supplies from the US.

NOT ENOUGH INVESTMENT
The farm sector has failed to invest enough in production over the past five years. With the US credit squeeze getting worse by the day, securing borrowings has become harder for farmers in the world's biggest grain exporter.
Also, grain elevators - companies that buy from farmers and remarket to processors - are seeing losses because they have committed to provide grains to processors at much lower prices.

DISEASED CROPS
Vietnam's farm sector faces the prospect of a return of the deadly crop disease which affected its crop yield badly last year. A viral disease called tungro and infestations of the brown plant-hopper insect in its fields have also led to global supplies being drained.
Scientists are also worried about the spread of a wheat-killing fungus, known as Ug99, from Africa to Pakistan and India.
The spread of the deadly virus, against which an effective fungicide does not exist, threatens the vital Asian Bread Basket, including the Punjab region.