How Fear Drove World Rice Markets Insane

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Nothing is more basic and simple than food. Yet it comes to us courtesy of a long, complicated supply chain that spans the globe. That chain delivers food cheaply — but it can break. Four years ago, it blew up in most spectacular fashion, affecting hundreds of millions of people who rely on rice for sustenance. That crash — the great rice crisis of 2008 — was a true disaster for some of the poorest people in Asia and West Africa. And <a href="http://hospital.99mr.com/shanghaibaojiayiliaomeiro"><strong>医疗美容ä¸* 心</strong></a> the most frightening thing about it is that no one can guarantee that it won't happen again — because the decisions that created it were all, somehow, perfectly reasonable. &nbsp; This crisis started with a simple cost-saving decision in India. The Indian government decided to buy more rice for its food distribution programs, instead of wheat. (Wheat was really expensive at the time.) To make sure there was plenty of cheap rice on hand, Indian officials made it illegal for most Indian rice to leave the country. In October 2007, they blocked exports of all non-Basmati rice. "This was the trigger, and we saw it the very next day," says Peter Timmer, an emeritus professor of economics at Harvard who is one of the world's leading experts on the rice trade. Even though there was plenty of rice available around the world because farmers in many places were harvesting record crops, the Indian ban on exports meant that there was less for other countries to buy. Immediately, the price of rice on world markets started to increase. Then came the next reaction. People started hoarding. Even Timmer went to <a href="http://hospital.99mr.com/xianhuaduyiyuan/"><strong>西安å�Žéƒ½åŒ»é™¢</strong></a> Trader Joe's and picked up six boxes of rice. "I knew it was going to be really expensive in another couple of weeks," he says. Governments, in their own way, did exactly the same thing. Early in 2008, Egypt, Pakistan and Vietnam all started limiting the amount of rice that they would export. Government officials in Thailand, the world's leading rice exporter, started talking about setting up a cartel of rice exporters, similar to OPEC. That, in turn, put the squeeze on countries like the Philippines, which don't grow enough rice for their own consumption. They need to buy rice from abroad. Panicked government officials in the Philippines went on TV to tell people to eat less rice. That, of course, convinced people to go out and buy even more. Prices surged again. On top of incompetence came corruption. Government officials in the Philippines spent taxpayer money on a series of sweetheart deals with a state-run company in Vietnam called Vinafood. They bought huge quantities of rice at ever-higher prices. Timmer says they didn't mind paying high prices, because the higher the price, the bigger the kickbacks from their Vietnamese trading partner. Those deals drove up the price by hundreds of dollars a ton. At this point, panic in the Philippines had spread to countries across Asia. "People panicked everywhere," says Timmer. "In Ho Chi Minh City, for heaven's sake, the center of the second-largest rice exporting surplus in the world, supermarkets and rice markets got cleaned out in two days." During the first four months of 2008, the price of a ton of rice on the world market went from 300 to 1,200. In countries that relied on imported rice, from West Africa to the Philippines, people got squeezed hard. Ben Flores, a janitor in the Philippines, says he just had to eat less. "Before that, I used to eat rice every morning," he says. "I really lost weight because of that." <a href="http://hospital.99mr.com/jinchengxiandainvziyiyuan"><strong>晋城现代女 å*�</strong></a> And remember: All of this was completely artificial. There still was plenty of rice in the world! Fear and self-interest was keeping it off the market. Two Americans — the economist Peter Timmer and Tom Slayton, who follows rice markets for a living from his home in Alexandria, Va. — hatched a plot to pop the rice bubble. "Tom called me up and said, 'Peter, <a href="http://inbookmark.com/mybookmark.php"><strong>昆明ä¸*医医院</strong></a> there's a million and a half tons of high-quality rice sitting in Japan,' " recalls Timmer. These stockpiles of rice exist because the World Trade Organization has forced Japan to import it from the U.S. But Japan doesn't want that rice, and most of it just sits in warehouses. Japan is not allowed to re-export it — unless the U.S. says it can. Timmer and Slayton started a lobbying campaign, pushing a deal between the U.S. and Japan that would allow Japan to export that rice to the Philippines. In mid-May 2008, both sides agreed. And that announcement was enough; the price started to drop. But a lot of damage remains, and so does some of the fear that produced the crisis in the first place. Neither ordinary consumers nor governments can be confident that the global food system won't go crazy again.

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graduation, the girls on the boys said: I'm going to Beijing, Beijing's Zhongguancun, known as Chinese Silicon Valley, where more opportunities, more easily developed later.
boy said: Then I went back to his hometown in Sichuan, where there is a land of abundance, beauty and more developed in the future you do not want me, I'm easy to find.
girls fist on the boy's chest tapping thick, Duqi the mouth child that you know would like beauty, Well, even then I do not want you, you can only think of my love I am, you should not find another girl.
boy holding girl's hand, affectionate printed on her forehead a kiss, saying, silly girl, our parents are in Sichuan it, you go to Beijing, I'm the good son, and of course have to go back to take care of father-in-law friends.
girls flashing stars head tears, dropped into the boy's arms, no longer together.
two different places separated but feelings are not reduced, of course, rely on thick Acacia radio waves to pass and send text messages, phone calls, two of the communications industry to the country dedicated contribution to the turnover.
day, the girls read a story online that is also the story of a couple, each call, the other girls first, boys will hang up when the girls experienced the vicissitudes of things, she was discovered that the world's favorite man, is that each call is to hang the boys of her own.
girls remember the story of her regret and tears, got off the phone that night, she said, boys: you hang up call.
boys surprised a moment, saying, silly girl, what phone also has sub-ah.
girls playfully, and said, do not Well no one must hang up before you, do not listen I will ignore you, so you can not find wives.
boys stopped for a few seconds, the next chuckle, and said that the silly girl, I do not fight for the future bachelor, I hang out Oh, I know a waste of telephone charges.
girls heard the boys coming after the first tone hang up the phone line busy tone, her hearty smile, in the heart of the boys said: Honey, I love you more than you love me still love.
Since then, two people called, whenever it comes time, she would hold the phone to listen quietly, wait for the boys hang up. The boys always call her intimate smile silly girl, then hung up.
a long time, the girls gradually feel a trace of light grievances: You know you, Well, every time I wait for you to hang up the phone, I love you so silent, you did not know it. She also wanted the boys to see the article and let him know how much you love him, so his day he can hang a phone, they can surly feel for what is loved, nice ah.
girls hold back, she's happy in both sweet and sour there, she thought: could such a unique way of life to the love of a man deeply, but also a blessing it.
with all of the North drift like the days of the girls had not comfortable, but to live in Tongzilou years, compared to those who live in the basement of the northern drift, the living conditions of the girls was quite good. At first, the ambition has been grinding for only a small tail, but a good strong girl, and what did not complain to the boys, she is more accustomed to the boys, to say the I love you.
Tongzilou where that community policing is not very good, even a Zhuantou women's underwear pervert. The girl with the rent previously had accompanied the girls did not feel how, but the girl because of family emergency leave of absence to go home, leaving one girl living in a kitchen and a bathroom Liangshiyiting house, she was natural feel lonely fear.
night, girls in their sleep to be awakened by a burst of sound, careful listening, the sound is coming from the door. Pay close attention to a corner of her whole body shaking a heap, not out of the atmosphere will not help the tears gushed from the eyes of the silent.
Suddenly, her hand touched suboccipital mobile phone, as if to seize the last straw, and immediately sent a text message to the boy: Honey, I'm afraid. In fact, far from the Sichuan
boyfriend, even if a message can play any role? Moreover, most of the night, the boys may be back off to sleep. Forget the first alarm the girls, in the most fearful moment, she only thought of the boy.
girls surprise is that the information was issued a few seconds, the boy's phone call came. She gently turned, came the boy hears the voice of concern: silly girl, is not like me?
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snow smart girls, one boy said she thought of the boy's intentions: the boys shouted loudly, so that people know outside of the house a man, steal or play any other idea people, accommodating to brisk walking.
girl trembling to the door, putting the speaker phone open, the sound at maximum, she gently on the microphone said: Well, I'm at the door, and putting a small speaker is also open.
recognized someone outside the girls this time, and not one, you can hear the sound of their conversation slightly.
just shaking the girl's body will be able to stand when the phone suddenly shouted :***, who engage in outside my door ah? The guys up the house are up, there are a visitor.
voice high-pitched and rough boys in the still of the night was the girl was shocked. However, people may be scared outside jump higher, girls just heard a thump thump of footsteps from near and far, seems to be to be scared off. Shu
girls out of breath, legs and soft, spread on the ground.
boy waited a moment, gently asked: had gone out, baby?
girl finally cried out, at the mobile phone, my dear, I miss you.
shock girls, boys, girls has been calm, that night, two people holding the phone said that morning, the girls that there will soon hang up the bar, playing long so long, how much money was spent.
boy smiled and said, foolish girl, girl said to silly, foolish as to fancy you, ah, hang it dear, be careful today, fell asleep at work the boss K Oh.
hang up after a group of girls sweet heart, she enjoyed the boys to her sense of security, but the fly in the ointment is that boys seem to have formed the first to hang up the practice, and this is no exception, girls thought: Although he is good, but in the end not that the story of the boys love girls love me so deep, he did not let me hang up a telephone.
hot day, many girls are not above the pocket unlined, so often she would forget to bring mobile phones, such as a meal after work on the phone at the desk, such as hanging out with my roommate when the phone at the rental in every time she came back the boys will receive a missed call and information, and only those times, she will feel a fair point: Well, each time to hang up my phone and can not be with you, even if it is a small punish it, not allowed to grievances, ah, bungy.
May 12, the general can no longer ordinary day, a girl in that little company dedicated doing their own thing, that point for his tireless hard work a little dream.
fast work, the office passed up a message: there is a major earthquake in Wenchuan is the epicenter, said similar magnitude with the Tangshan earthquake.
child was surprised that he throws to the pocket for cell phone, forgot!
she immediately picked up the boys in the office landline to call, but call off the last signal, dial the home phone number, or unreasonable, it seems that the communication facilities in Sichuan were destroyed by the earthquake.
a sense of foreboding in my mind, the frantic girls can not wait to work again, rushing down from the office, recruit a taxi to rush to their rental Tongzilou.
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Since that you insist let me hang up, I know, you must have seen the story, but, my dear, I want to tell you, I love you more than you love me love.
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silly girl, I is not that seems to accompany a blessing in your life, and my back piece of prefabricated panels, has pressed me more than two hours, my whole back is tearing chest pain, and I can smell their streaming blood of the Xing Weier, baby, I may not be able to accompany you to go out.
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