Rice Shortage?

Tuesday, April 1, 2008, 6:14
Economy, Philippines
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A worker waits for a truck, with imported rice to be unloaded at a government warehouse, in Quezon City, Metro Manila. (Photo: Reuters)

Rumors about rice shortage is spreading across the nation. I’m not an expert and never really followed the news on this one. All I know is that this rumor started after the typhoon hit the Bicol region and NFA started to pull out the government supplied rice – which was cheap. I guess the people got used to the affordable prices and started speculations when they pulled it out. The thing is, the rice supplied falls under relief goods and obviously only goes out when there is a crisis. Crisis (typhoon) OUT equals Relief goods (cheap rice) OUT – simple.

I think they all started to panic and called it a shortage after they were forced to buy rice at retail price. How do we define shortage? If I go to the grocery and decide to buy rice – I have a good selection to choose from. I’m not seeing a shortage – but based on the new information being presented in the media – I guess I’m expecting a shortage (but not now). And we go through this every year, every time a calamity hits – affects our fields we speculate.

Prices? – law of supply and demand? if supply is low, demand is high – price goes up. True but there are other factors like petroleum prices.

So let’s think about this before we panic:

No rice shortage yet – agreed?
Yes, prices went up – but if gas prices go up, almost everything else goes up with it
This is a call to improve our rice production – invest in technology
Hoarders – kill em’ all

It might be worthwhile to look into investing in rice farms – I think improving technology can help turn this back into an attractive industry to invest in.

Extra rice please!

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