Stage Being Set For Massive Global Rice Shortage

The Stage Is Being Set For A Massive Global Rice Shortage

Michael

As you will see below, some of the biggest rice producers in the entire world are being hit really hard, and rice production is going to be way below expectations this year.  Of course rice is one of the primary staples that poor nations depend upon, and so this is a really big deal.  If there is a serious shortage of rice in 2023, that is going to have enormous implications for all of us.

An announcement that India just made should be front page news all over the globe right now.

India usually accounts for over 40 percent of all worldwide rice shipments, but now they have placed severe restrictions on all future exports this year…

India banned exports of broken rice and imposed a 20% duty on exports of various grades of rice on Thursday as the world’s biggest exporter of the grain tries to augment supplies and calm local prices after below-average monsoon rainfall curtailed planting.India exports rice to more than 150 countries, and any reduction in its shipments would increase upward pressure on food prices, which are already rising because of drought, heat-waves and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Did you catch that last sentence?

150 different nations depend on rice from India.

So where are they going to get their rice?

Normally, India exports more rice than the next four largest exporters combined…

Italy is the biggest rice producer in the European Union, and it is being projected that rice production in that nation will be down about 30 percent this year due to the endless drought that Europe is currently experiencing…

The unfavorable weather has already taken a serious toll on the rice industry. Estimates say farmers are expecting to lose around 30 percent of their yields this year, and the industry has already hemorrhaged around $3 billion as a result of the drought. Many of the most stricken fields are in the regions of Lombardy and Piedmont, which together produce around 90 percent of Italy’s rice.

Rice production is going to be way down in the United States as well.

California usually produces about 20 percent of all U.S. rice, but this year a severe lack of water for agricultural purposes is making things exceedingly difficult for rice growers in the state…

What we are witnessing is truly unprecedented.

I know that this may be hard to believe, but it is being reported that “about 300,000 out of the 550,000 acres committed to rice growing in California will go without harvest” in 2022.  The following comes from Zero Hedge…

New satellite imagery shows a large swath of California’s rice fields has been left barren without harvest as fears of a ‘mini dust bowl’ emerge due to diminishing water supplies.

Kurt Richter, a third-generation rice farmer in Colusa, the rice capital of California, told San Francisco Chronicle that fields upon fields of the grain have already transformed into a “wasteland.”

A report via the US Department of Agriculture shows about 300,000 out of the 550,000 acres committed to rice growing in California will go without harvest. This could potentially drive up sushi prices nationwide because most of the rice produced in the state is for just that.

Of course many other crops are being hit extremely hard as well.

More...