The price of rice is skyrocketing, and it's pushing millions more people towards starvation
The Indian rice export ban, the war in Ukraine and El Niño are combining to create a "doom loop" for the world's poorest people, as staple food prices soar.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-05/global-rice-crisis-el-ino-ukraine-war-cause-food-security-fears/102660990Open linkView original on kbin.social970
Comments141
Started the food wars have
Been prepping for years just in case this happens. Scary to see its possible.
There's no prepping for a food war. Prepping is for a temporary situation. Food supplies must be constantly restocked.
The survivors will be those able to adapt. There's plenty of nourishing fauna, but how many are ready to eat bugs? Rats?
I live in Vietnam, and I'm here to tell you that bugs and rats are more expensive than rice. I've eaten them all 🍽️
It’s sad to just watch it all unfold the way we’ve been warned for decades.
Can we please not have silly jokes on a serious topic like global hunger?
This is one thing I don't want from reddit
If I don’t laugh about the world I’ll just start crying. It’s sadly the defense mechanism I’ve developed. I use humor to avoid uncomfortable moments in all aspects of my life.
I agree, humor is a valid coping mechanism. It's not like a serious conversation on Lemmy is going to solve world hunger, your joke was fine in my opinion.
I’ve had a lot of trauma in my life and have become a very pessimistic and dark person. Everyone has their cross to bear and I wear mine with a fake smile.
It was a fine dark humor joke, don't sweat it.
Thanks
It's not sadly the defence mechanism you developed, but luckily.
Because face it some defence mechanism is needed, and the vast majority of them are absolutely harmful. Fuck the ruffled feathers those are the exact kind of people who say "I'd rather ignore it", "I'd rather deny it's happening", "I'd rather say that it's bad everywhere", "I'd rather say it's because of the Jews", "I'd rather sit here and unproductively wallow in pity", or whatever. You are a human, and as such you have the birth right to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
Thanks
It may sound silly but it's put succinctly and there's an element of grim truth to it.
Additionally, do we have to compare everything to Reddit? It's the Internet, people are going to cope how they cope.
I just want to filter out the words Reddit, Elon and Trump. I’m just so tired.
Curating your experience certainly helps. Thankfully Lemmy clients are starting to have keyword blocks I hear. It's the thing I miss the most about Boost.
So Huffman, Musk, and Trump walk into a bar...
And they order everyone around?
Thanks! I used to do it in Apollo with Trump. It was nice living in my bubble.
Yeah but it's in bad taste.
Bad taste is when people draw attention away from the actual issues and towards making sure the language is sufficiently inoffensive and mild enough for their delicate sensibilities. This is one of the worst traits that the Fediverse has developed.
you’re a bad taste
I want to taste both of you bad
You can’t, they’ve both been banned from export
Can we please not banning silly jokes on a serious topic? That is one thing I don't want from real life
You don't make silly jokes on serious topics in real life?
I'm sorry if this disturbs you but free humour is one of the extremely important aspects of the internet that Lemmy needs to support. When you know who you are talking to you can avoid subjects that may hurt the other person but on the public internet this is not possible. The alternative to never dare making any joke because of the risk to hurt someone is dystopian.
Top comment isn't even a joke, it's a movie reference that supports the idea that this is a serious topic.
A huge percentage of us probably only exist today because our ancestors could laugh in the face of adversity and just carry on
No
Some of us can only deal with existential horror by laughing and the absurdity of it all.
You must be fun at parties....
No!
More very real effects of global warming that will be ignored or blamed on other things no doubt.
Global warming will fuck us indirectly before the weather on a Sunday afternoon is actually the problem, many seem to miss that.
In Vietnam we're losing crop because of saltwater backflow on the Mekong. Dams have been built in several places upstream and all the reservoirs are being filled.
Mainwhile, Russia is actively engaged in the destruction of Ukraine wheat export terminals, and India remains silent.
India, Indonesia and the rest of non alignment countries do not need to enter this war set up by the West.
I agree with you that India doesn't need to take sides, but I'm pretty sure Russian/West cooperation had been increasingly positive since the cold war ended, right until Putin decided he wanted to be an imperialist again. The West didn't make him invade a sovereign, non-threatening country.
Russia imperalist is akin to someone bombing Iraq, Vietnam and Afghanistan?
LOL
Pssst, you're allowed to criticize more than 1 country
Is that why NATO and the EU cannot be baddies?
Iraq was a bullshit war. Cheney, Bush, and Rumsfeld should be in prison for lying to American public to involve us. The Iraqi civilian death toll was obscene. Few will disagree with this.
Ukraine is a bullshit war. Putin should be in prison for lying to involve Russia in it. Few outside Russia disagree with this.
It's not a soccer match. These statements are self-consistent, not contradictory.
A tankies one weakness.. he'll never recover.
I agree; the joke is that multinationalism is used as a shield. Russia is a far-right fascist state just like America has a right and a far right party, just like how Europe is sliding back to fascism, and while China dives into its thought police hell world all while all of the above exploit the rest of the world and or there own citizens to push nationalism to its upmost cancerous potential untill the whole house of cards snaps on the inferno thtis clmiate change.
yes, your point being?
Russia is excused because USA is also doing bad stuff? Because that is a weak fucking argument.
Well... Yes.
They're both bad
Enter the war, no. Make a simple moral comment on who the agresssors are and that they should stop, years.
Historical and political reasons too. USA keeps arming Pakistan with modern weapons, and they have a single target to use them on. It would be stupid of India to put all it's weight behind US if that's a one-sided affair. In an ideal world everyone would side with what is moral, unfortunately we don't live in that world.
So true.
More than old friends. India is heavily reliant on russian arms. Replacing them would be a slow, expensive process. Considering it is surrounded on two sides by aggressors with regular conflicts, jeopardizing relations with Russia is not an option.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The cost of rice — a staple food for nearly half the world's population — and other essentials, like wheat, corn and vegetable oils, are rising as geopolitical forces, extreme weather and a dawning El Niño disrupt global trade.
In its most recent rice outlook, the USDA said India was expected to ship a record 23.0 million tonnes in 2024, exceeding the combined shipments of the next two largest exporters — Thailand and Vietnam.
The Indian government runs the world's largest food distribution program, catering to about 800 million people, according to McDonald Pelz business manager Sumit Gupta.
The Indian government has a policy of maintaining reserves of key commodities, and as it assessed the risk of El Niño, and the rapid pace of rice exports this year, it brought the trade to a close on July 20.
"This sharp increase in exports can be ascribed to high international prices due to [the] geo-political scenario, El Niño sentiments and extreme climatic conditions in other rice-producing countries," the Indian Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution said in its statement declaring the ban.
At a conference in St Petersburg recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged 25,000-50,000 tons of free grain to Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, the Central African Republic and Eritrea in the coming months.
I'm a bot and I'm open source!
At the same time as Ukrainian wheat issues with the blockade could be a really big issue.
Is 70% correct?. I thought Thailand and Vietnam were just as big of producers? (we get more rice from thailand/vietnam/cambodia/+ grow our own locally here in australia). I never buy basmati.....
What’s wrong with basmati?
It's quite a bit more expensive and only grows in specific regions
Basmati is the only top quality rice out there. The cheap stuff is okay but if you want to enjoy go with basmati
When staple foods (rice/wheat/beans/corn) inflate in price the poor starve.
Why can't South Asian diaspora just buy Thai jasmine rice instead?
Hong Kong here. We have rice almost everyday and apparently, we don't import them from India. Yet the "Rice Association" said that due to the India ban, the price of rice in Hong Kong will likely to rise by 10% in October.
The nations used to import from India are buying from everyone else, and that drives up the prices.
Edit: typo
Same as our energy in the UK, we were never reliant on Russia for our gas, but because countries like Germany didn't cut themselves off fast enough they were suddenly bidding up what we usually buy when the sanctions came in.
I think its the quality and people only want to consume high quality rice.. I tried Thai jasmine and Indian basmati. Can confirm Indian Basmati is really good when compared to jasmine rice.
Asian guy here. I use jasmine for Asian dishes, Basmati for Indian and middle eastern dishes, and generic American long grain for Mexican and Cajun dishes. Pairing the right variety of rice with the right cuisine is a simple choice that can really improve the dish.
hmm, I generally prefer thai jasmine over basmati
they are very different styles, saying one is higher quality than the other is just plain wrong.
Must be preference because I greatly prefer Thai Jasmine rice over Indian Basmati. But they're different.
I prefer jasmine rice for Thai food and Basmati rice for Indian food. Anything else would be strange.
100% agreed.
It's just whatever you're used to. Thai jasmine rice is amazing, and I wouldn't eat Thai food with anything else. If you're used to eating Indian food with basmati, jasmine won't be a good substitute.
I'm used to Minute rice since that's what my parents used growing up. Not sure what kind of rice that is, but the first time I made something that called for Basmati rice, I didn't like the rice. It was sweet when I expected earthy. The rest of the recipe was good, and I just use jasmine rice with it instead every time thereafter, since that's what I buy now over the boxed crap.
Me, a doomer, with pseudobulbar affect.
Log off social media for a bit there. Things aren't great out there, but I'm being absolutely sincere that this environment is a negative feedback loop that makes it out to be even worse. We all need to step away from time to time. Come back in a week we will all still be here.
Taking a week off isn’t going to stop collapse. Ignoring something doesn’t make it go away.
Worrying about something you can't control isn't going to make things better either.
Assuming it's about control or that you can't control it is the worst. There's always something we can do about our problems. To think otherwise is to allow yourself to be consumed by them.
I feel like you didn’t read the linked article. Am I right?
I feel like you didn't read the Stoics. Start here:
Worrying about shit outside of your control is not just unproductive, it's counterproductive as it's distracting you from stuff that actually is in your control.
Rationalizing fears, justifying inaction. It’s too late, there’s nothing we can do. If your reaction to climate and collapse is to do nothing, you are part of the problem. Learn about overshoot and aerosol demasking. Read Limits to Growth and get back to me.
Where exactly did I advocate to do nothing?
Link doesn't work for me
Try this one.
Getting downvoted for being right. Feels good man.
Well, being right doesn't mean people have to like you tho... And most of the time people don't like being told that they're wrong too. So, that's I guess where the downvotes came from.
I don’t care about downvotes, or if anyone likes me. As long as I can get them to take climate change seriously and inform them that collapse will happen in their lifetime.
There's a war in El Niño? What does that even mean? I thought El Niño was a weather thing, not a location.
You're probably joking, but in case you're not or anyone else is confused;
There are three reasons listed for the price skyrocketing:
The Indian rice export ban
The war in Ukraine
El Niño
No no no... The war in Ukraine and El Nino are combining. Someone figured out how to weaponize the weather for use in the war.
Ñ
ÑÕ
F
Oxford commas forever. Commas save lives, people!
I've always wanted all countries to ban staple food and water exports. If you can't grow your own food and have your own water, you don't need to have people living there.
So what happens to all the refugees that do already live there who then need to be relocated, will your nation take them all?
A bit valid. Just rough for the people already living there that may not have chosen it
Could do a phased approach over a decade or so, rather then all at once. But the other thing is that places (like saudi arabia) that shouldn't have near the population they do, are able to pay much more for food then somalia and so food growers in somalia would rather produce food to sell rather then feed their own people. So you basically shift the starvation to the food producers rather than the food buyers.
How dare you advocate for national stability through hard times
Why would a country cripple their economic growth like that?
I mean, Russia man did illegally invade another country and ordered several warcrimes, so yeah, Russia man bad.
Take your normal pills lil bro, you're schizo posting again
even for a cookerpost, this is extra cooked
Referring to the potential starvation deaths of a large group of people as a positive for climate change is like saying you’re glad someone died early from a car accident instead of suicide.
Greg you missed the stop sign!
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Do we have /r/hailcorporate on Fedi yet?
Honestly? Yeah, I thought you were serious, because I’ve seen that attitude expressed before. Generally it’s more “this hazy, unspecified population can be sacrificed to help me deal with the existential dread that me and my world are walking off a cliff” than “dear me I so DO delight in death”, but it makes my teeth ache.
Thank you for clarifying, and I’m sorry for jumping on you.
I didn't think he was serious, fwiw.
Nuclear Winter about to solve climate change /s & If there is nothing left to safe there is no need for any efforts /s
I think there might be better alternatives including less suffering
Eh, the way it was written I wouldn’t have read it as sarcasm. Text and tone yada yada. That said, I’ve definitely seen people who seriously think like this.
It's called Malthusianism (after the philosopher Malthus) and, yes, it is a real philosophy.
Sort of. Malthusians believe that disasters which take out large numbers of people help to keep the population in check and are therefore necessary. Obviously a little oversimplified, but that's about what it boils down to.
Completely honest, I lean a little bit more towards nuclear annihilation every day
From the rest of your comment history? Yes, it's entirely believable. It's more surprising that you're walking it back, really.
Literally no way to discern whether it was a sarcastic joke or if you were legitimately an eco-fascist
I see a lot of people on the internet say some pretty horrible shit with a lot of conviction. Sorry that you’re having a rough time. Hopefully adding more clarity to your communication helps a bit.
Those who can not afford to eat are probably not making much CO2 emissions.
Yeah, once they cannot afford the food they stop making any CO2.
Not sure if you caught the text of what they’re saying: people who can’t afford to eat rice starving to death aren’t removing much of humanity’s carbon footprint.
Where you suggest twice that nuclear war would be good or that your whole life is a joke?
I feel fucked up ways about stuff too. Nothing wrong with it and all that negativity’s gotta go somewhere. Just wanted to head the ecofascism train off at the pass.
It doesn’t make sense even on a technical level. Cities are all near water and their fallout plumes would irradiate huge swaths of the earth to the east in addition to everything downstream.
The infrastructure of civilization is all clustered around cities as well, so we’d lose access to the best spots to live.
I got nothing but sympathy for you, thirty years ago that bit would have killed. Today everyone assumes you’re serious.
It's culling the wrong demographic. Removing poor people is the least efficient. Removing the poorest will have the least effect possible.
These comments always make me wonder wether it's a lack of education, bad taste or racism.
No one needs poor.
Except the people who prefer to pay less for their goods and services. They depend on people willing / forced to work for very little; they need the poor.
Also this is not a business where you could hire and fire people based on what is 'needed', and you're not the boss.
These are humans with exactly the same right to food as you.
They are nothing but numbers in a spreadsheet.
Yes, I read it before. No, it didn't change much. Where's the joke, what's funny about this?
On the other hand, too many people write these comments seriously, which is enough reason to counter them.
It's downplaying the climate crisis and normalizing racism. You can insist it was done in a lighthearted way, but that's not so relevant.
so eat something else? if you're reliant on a grain crop that you cant even grow yourself, you've never had food security. plenty of other grain crops that are cheaper to grow than rice (which requires a massive amount of water). those pictures of people that live in arid environments means they're not growing rice, ever
Ah yes, the old "let them eat cake" solution.
cake is generally comprised of wheat flour. does wheat grow that well in africa?
Whoosh..
You're not wrong.
But this is equivalent to telling a homeless person to get a job. It's not that simple.
perhaps. i'd argue that it really is that simple. for decades, many countries in areas that are well known, historically, for having famines have been importing most/all of their food because the food was available for export by other countries that are very good at growing things & they had excess. now those countries have stopped or drastically curtailed exports. the end result is that the famine countries cannot buy their way out of famine - and now the population isnt just a few hundred thousand but tens of millions.
It is THAT simple!
I guess I'll die
and could you keep it down please your upsetting whats left of the middle class, thanks.
Like at least 98% of the population who does not grow anything.
Maybe those cheaper crops aren't readily available to them? It does say it will mainly hit the poorest people....
Yeah, the rich 😎
Agreed, but this is going to require changes by governments. Certain crops often get subsidies, whether they're the best option or not. There are healthier grains that can stand up better to climate change than rice. Many governments are so stuck into subsidizing specifically rice that they have backed themselves into a corner with a thirst crop that isn't all that nutrient dense. And unwinding those subsides is unpopular, even if it's ultimately the right thing to do.
What are you talking about? The whole point of flooding rice fields is to manage insects without pesticides