End Times File: Food crisis USA: Retailers in New York, New England, and West Coast limit flour, rice, cooking oil purchases; prices surge in Russia

As the specter of famine once again looms in the Third World, two-dollar bagels might become the norm in North America. Historically, the Great Depression was noted for its bread lines and the two world wars were remembered for their food rationing, but starvation was unheard of in the USA and Canada. In the early 1940s, however, gasoline purchases were restricted for civilians since petroleum was diverted to the military and German submarines prowled along the East Coast, seeking tankers to sink.

The current global food shortage, however, is hitting America in earnest at last with food retailers in New York, New England, and the West Coast limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil. While starvation in North America appears unlikely, officialdom is offering few if any assurances on how the global food shortage and price spike will affect Americans and Canadians.

"I’m surprised the Bush administration hasn’t slapped export controls on wheat," James Rawles, editor of SurvivalBlog.com observed. "The Asian countries are here buying every kind of wheat." Your resident blogger is not surprised by President Bush's refusal to limit wheat exports. His failure to do so is no doubt motivated by the same Council on Foreign Relations-molded worldview that refuses to deploy troops to the US-Mexican border to halt the illegal alien invasion.

Rawles warns further: "There have been so many stories about worldwide shortages that it encourages people to stock up. What most people don’t realize is that supply chains have changed, so inventories are very short. Even if people increased their purchasing by 20%, all the store shelves would be wiped out." Did you catch that? If every American household stocked up their private food supplies, then all of the store shelves in the USA would be empty. The story below reports too: "There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks." I'm guilty as charged.

Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World
JOSH GERSTEIN, Staff Reporter of the Sun April 21, 2008

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing.

Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.

At a Costco Warehouse in Mountain View, Calif., yesterday, shoppers grew frustrated and occasionally uttered expletives as they searched in vain for the large sacks of rice they usually buy.

“Where’s the rice?” an engineer from Palo Alto, Calif., Yajun Liu, said. “You should be able to buy something like rice. This is ridiculous.”

The bustling store in the heart of Silicon Valley usually sells four or five varieties of rice to a clientele largely of Asian immigrants, but only about half a pallet of Indian-grown Basmati rice was left in stock. A 20-pound bag was selling for $15.99.

“You can’t eat this every day. It’s too heavy,” a health care executive from Palo Alto, Sharad Patel, grumbled as his son loaded two sacks of the Basmati into a shopping cart. “We only need one bag but I’m getting two in case a neighbor or a friend needs it,” the elder man said.

The Patels seemed headed for disappointment, as most Costco members were being allowed to buy only one bag. Moments earlier, a clerk dropped two sacks back on the stack after taking them from another customer who tried to exceed the one-bag cap.

“Due to the limited availability of rice, we are limiting rice purchases based on your prior purchasing history,” a sign above the dwindling supply said.

Shoppers said the limits had been in place for a few days, and that rice supplies had been spotty for a few weeks. A store manager referred questions to officials at Costco headquarters near Seattle, who did not return calls or e-mail messages yesterday.

An employee at the Costco store in Queens said there were no restrictions on rice buying, but limits were being imposed on purchases of oil and flour. Internet postings attributed some of the shortage at the retail level to bakery owners who flocked to warehouse stores when the price of flour from commercial suppliers doubled.

The curbs and shortages are being tracked with concern by survivalists who view the phenomenon as a harbinger of more serious trouble to come.

“It’s sporadic. It’s not every store, but it’s becoming more commonplace,” the editor of SurvivalBlog.com, James Rawles, said. “The number of reports I’ve been getting from readers who have seen signs posted with limits has increased almost exponentially, I’d say in the last three to five weeks."

Spiking food prices have led to riots in recent weeks in Haiti, Indonesia, and several African nations. India recently banned export of all but the highest quality rice, and Vietnam blocked the signing of a new contract for foreign rice sales.

“I’m surprised the Bush administration hasn’t slapped export controls on wheat,” Mr. Rawles said. “The Asian countries are here buying every kind of wheat.”

Mr. Rawles said it is hard to know how much of the shortages are due to lagging supply and how much is caused by consumers hedging against future price hikes or a total lack of product.

“There have been so many stories about worldwide shortages that it encourages people to stock up. What most people don’t realize is that supply chains have changed, so inventories are very short,” Mr. Rawles, a former Army intelligence officer, said. “Even if people increased their purchasing by 20%, all the store shelves would be wiped out.”

At the moment, large chain retailers seem more prone to shortages and limits than do smaller chains and mom-and-pop stores, perhaps because store managers at the larger companies have less discretion to increase prices locally.

Mr. Rawles said the spot shortages seemed to be most frequent in the Northeast and all the way along the West Coast. He said he had heard reports of buying limits at Sam’s Club warehouses, which are owned by Wal-Mart Stores, but a spokesman for the company, Kory Lundberg, said he was not aware of any shortages or limits.

An anonymous high-tech professional writing on an investment Web site, Seeking Alpha, said he recently bought 10 50-pound bags of rice at Costco. “I am concerned that when the news of rice shortage spreads, there will be panic buying and the shelves will be empty in no time. I do not intend to cause a panic, and I am not speculating on rice to make profit. I am just hoarding some for my own consumption,” he wrote.

For now, rice is available at Asian markets in California, though consumers have fewer choices when buying the largest bags. “At our neighborhood store, it’s very expensive, more than $30” for a 25-pound bag, a housewife from Mountain View, Theresa Esquerra, said. “I’m not going to pay $30. Maybe we’ll just eat bread.”

Source: The New York Sun

In addition to regional/local papers like The New York Sun, wire services like Reuters confirm that Wal-Mart's Sam's Club members-only warehouse club is limiting rice sales due to a decline in the global rice harvest.

Sam's Club limiting sales of rice
Wed Apr 23, 2008 11:38am EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc's Sam's Club warehouse division said on Wednesday that it is limiting sales of Jasmine, Basmati and long grain white rices "due to recent supply and demand trends."

The news comes a day after Costco Wholesale Corp, the largest U.S. warehouse club operator, said it had seen increased demand for items like rice and flour as customers, worried about global food shortages, stock up.

Sam's Club said it is limiting sales of the rices to four bags per customer per visit, and it is working with its suppliers to ensure the products remain in stock.

Sam's Club, the No. 2 U.S. warehouse club operator, said it is not limiting sales of flour or cooking oil at this time.

Costco said some of its stores had put limits on sales of items such as rice and flour, but it was trying to modify those restrictions to meet customer demand.

Food costs have soared worldwide, spurred by increased demand in emerging markets like China and India, competition with biofuels, high oil prices and market speculation.

Rice prices in the United States and around the world have more than doubled in the last year, and U.S. rice futures rose to a fresh all-time high Wednesday on worries about supply shortages.

Trade bans have been put in place by India, the world's second largest rice exporter in 2007, and Vietnam, the third biggest, in the hopes of cooling domestic prices of the staple. Thailand is the largest rice exporter.

Meanwhile, on May 1 the Kremlin will lift the Soviet-style food price controls it imposed last October, a move that enabled the Soviet strategists to maintain both political stability in Russia during the December-March election season and also the fiction that United Russia is the country's real "party of power." The price surge that is expected to hit Russia's citizen-slaves later this spring will provide that country's open communists with yet another rationale to decry Kremlin gangster capitalism and demand full-blown socialism.