Man, I've still got twenty pounds of rice in my cupboard that's been sitting there since a year ago. I don't eat that much rice to worry. Now if they start cutting back on the pasta, I am in trouble.
Seriously, nothing's happened in the world to jeopardize our supply of food in this country yet. One rice mill in Australia closing up didn't happen overnight, their production rate has been dropping off for the past decade. They glutted the market with cheap rice in that part of the world, and put everyone else out of business over there, so now that they can't do it anymore, someone else will step up and start milling rice elsewhere, grown by someone else, and the market will normalize at a slightly higher price. In the meantime, people are going to try and buy up cheap rice, forcing the price up quickly as the subsidies go away.
We farm about 5-10% of the total arable land on the planet. I am not too worried about a food shortage anytime soon. I am worried about governments stepping in and screwing with the marketplace and destroying competition.
As soon as they get the delta irrigation control up and running in southern Iraq, I expect them to start being a global, or at least a major regional competitor on the ag market. Where else in the world can you get 5 cuttings/year of alfalfa?
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The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
-- Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)