I was at Costco this weekend - at least at my store, they had the usual number of pallets at floor level - I did NOT look up to see what they had "up top". The had generic "white rice", "Uncle Ben's" and Basmatti. I picked up a bag of Uncle Ben's, and WAS thinking of a bag of Basmatti, but it was $13 for 20 lbs, more than 2x the price of Uncle Bens (even if it does taste good - on occasion)

500 lbs of rice sounds like someone gearing up for the Jambalaya Festival down here in LA.

Kinda wish I had paid more attention to watching my grandmother canning veggies rather than playing in the trees when I was a child.

She's 90 and forgotten more knowledge than I'll ever learn about gardening, etc. Now it's pretty much too late to learn from her.

Those of you that still have your old-ones that can teach, learn from them while you can.

Yes, with "intensive" agriculture- lots of irrigation and fertilizers.

Raise your hand if you are surprised.

*looks around* Didn't think so.

I think there is an echo in here.

What concerned me more was the "based upon your prior purchasing history". Good thing I use the "Boil in Bag" stuff out of the box. Perhaps I should try my hand at cooking rice without the bag...

Amen...

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?

Whether the shortages are because of crop failures or some jack@$$ screwing with the market it results in the same thing. However it isn't just one mill closing though, India a major exporter of rice has ceased exporting all but the highest quality rice (over 90%reduction), and 4 of the largest wheat exporters have ceased exportation.