Global rice prices.

meester

Voyager2002 wrote: »

However, these "tiny" farms actually use land more efficiently than do the large-scale mechanised farms. And of course they rely on human or animal power (all organic) rather than on fossil fuels. Of course, they make very inefficient use of human labour, but the people who work on them prefer the modest livelihoods they offer to outright starvation!

Surely the way forward is to find ways to help such small-scale farmers to raise their incomes by working more efficiently (eg with the gadgets used by Chinese peasants) rather than replacing them with the kind of large-scale enterprise you find in California.

I don't quite understand your logic. You are saying you think it's better for them to stay a poor country unable to afford proper healthcare and so on?

Indonesia and other such countries employ about 40% of their workforce in agriculture. In the USA it is 0.5%. Are you seriously trying to tell me that to have half the country toiling to provide meagre output instead of adding value as the US economy does through skills and education? The US produces over 250 million tonnes of corn, 60 million tonnes of wheat, 60 million tonnes of soyabeans, 30 million of sugarbeet, 20 million of potatoes 10 million of rice, and also of sorghum, plus plenty more besides.

What does Indonesia manage with a much larger workforce? Nearly 3 million tonnes of rubber, 15 million of palm oil, 50 million of rice, and under a million each of cocoa and coffee. It's not impressive.

The world is getting hungrier, and toiling in a hot field all day for under $1 is not going to pay to educate your child in medicine, and neither will it pay the doctor's bill when a family member develops a serious illness. Your prescriptions for the world's poor to reject industry and fossil fuels are luddite and will perpetuate needless poverty and suffering (this sort of thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJLG85gn0bc is the direct result of poverty caused by an insufficiently industrialised economy). Industrial farming is a modern miracle. I am reminded of this fact when I pass the advert for the book on 'Austerity Britain' every morning at the train station. Calories were rationed, less than 60 years ago in Britain. It's easy to forget.

harryhound

Sustainability is an interesting concept.

Mrs H got very involved in genealogy. So not to be left out, I thought I could cut some corners and look up my father's family in the census. Family mythology suggests they were "yeomen" farmers and I do have a bag of old deeds going back to 1729.
So I thought easy peasy, I will get copies of the census return for the farm.
To cut a long story short, the returns featured a village, a couple of hundred miles from London, where every two bed cottage was in multiple occupation. These thatched slums, at least the ones that are still standing, are now "chocolate box" and occupied by the wealthy retired. In the mid 19th century each long thin plot with a terraced thatched cottage & collection of sheds, was supporting a dozen souls. They seemed to be busy making buttons. Presumably the cloth covered bone things one sees in historical dramas. Is it any surprise that my great grandfather, the second son of the family, emigrated to Victorian London?
The "developing" world is full of people living a subsistence lifestyle, a life of continual work, poverty and very little prospects. No wonder we are seeing the growth of huge shanty town cities, as hundreds of millions of people try to emulate my great grandfather.
However, there is a problem. To provide my European lifestyle to 6,500,000,000 people requires three planets. To provide the lifestyle of the average American would require five planets. How many planets are required for the Hollywood life style, that these village people can now view, thanks to globalisation and modern technology, I dread to think.
So we have an interesting dichotomy, the peasant with his paddy field and water buffalo, if he can limit his number of children, is actually "sustainable".
You, me and the people in the shanty town are not "sustainable", but who wants to volunteer to go back to long hours and grinding poverty?

Harry.

PS The majority of Chinese peasants would move to town tomorrow, if they could get a permit and a job

purch

From Bloomberg by Jae Hur

Rice fell the most in six weeks after a government report showed U.S. planting accelerated last week and grain sales slowed, easing concern of a global food crisis.

Farmers in the U.S., the world's third-largest exporter, planted 44 percent of their rice crop as of April 27, up from 26 percent a week earlier, the government said yesterday. The pace is behind the five-year average of 58 percent for that date. U.S. rice exporters reported sales of 25,800 metric tons in the week ended April 17, down 85 percent from a week earlier.

The price has dropped 8 percent since reaching a record April 24 in Chicago. Rice, a food staple for half the world, has doubled in the past year as China, Vietnam and India curbed exports. High costs stoked social tension in Asia and Africa and prompted Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s Sam's Club to limit purchases of jasmine, basmati and long-grain white rice in U.S. stores.

``Planting progress last night was higher than people were generally expecting,'' said Jack Scoville, vice president of Price Futures Group in Chicago. ``Export sales were rather poor.''
Rice for July delivery fell 63 cents, or 2.7 percent, to $23.05 per hundred pounds at 9:33 a.m. on the Chicago Board of Trade. A close at that price would be the biggest drop for a most-active contract since March 17.

The cereal has fallen from a record $25.07 after Thailand and Brazil said they won't curb exports and Pakistan announced plans to sell 2.5 million tons of the grain, easing concern that global supplies were short.

harryhound

Don't you just love the American system of measuring - I wonder why wheat tends to be measured by the bushel but rice by the 100 pounds (American hundredweight)?

If 100 lbs cost 23 USD let us assume 1lb is now worth 0.10 GBP.

If I remember, there are 2240 lbs to the Imperial ton.

So 2240 x 0.10 = 224 GBP per ton.

The stuff we tend to eat is wheat. Three years ago us rich people in the UK were paying as little as 60 GBP for our staple; though, as we all know food prices have increased a lot recently and we are currently shelling out two or three times as much.

European wheat prices were also higher on Monday with November milling futures in Paris up 1.75 euros at 197.50 euros a tonne. [EUR is worth about 0.80 GBP so that price is about 157 GBP per tonne]

The point I am making is that the huddled masses, in the third world shanty towns cannot afford to pay 157 GBP or 224 GBP per ton for carbohydrates. So someone has got to subsidise their food; with all the distortions and corruption that creates.

You don't need to look in the mirror to know who that is going to be.
Pray for a good harvest this year, with no more floods, gales or droughts.

Harry.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7489291

PS Meanwhile those of us who eat meat, milk and eggs need to realise that there is a multiplier between the price of basic grain and the price when it has been processed through an animal. I think chickens are only something like 2.5 times with 4 footed animals something considerably higher. Lay up a horde of bully beef now?

Here is a farmer who tells it how it is:

http://www.thriplow-farms.co.uk/annual/2007.htm

.

purch

global rice prices hitting an all time high

The curse of the MSE forums strikes again :eek:

Rice settled limit-down for the third straight session, with the July contract settling at $21.78 per hundredweight

harryhound

The solution to high food prices is high food prices!

Voyager2002

meester wrote: »

I don't quite understand your logic. You are saying you think it's better for them to stay a poor country unable to afford proper healthcare and so on?

Indonesia and other such countries employ about 40% of their workforce in agriculture. In the USA it is 0.5%. Are you seriously trying to tell me that to have half the country toiling to provide meagre output instead of adding value as the US economy does through skills and education? The US produces over 250 million tonnes of corn, 60 million tonnes of wheat, 60 million tonnes of soyabeans, 30 million of sugarbeet, 20 million of potatoes 10 million of rice, and also of sorghum, plus plenty more besides.

What does Indonesia manage with a much larger workforce? Nearly 3 million tonnes of rubber, 15 million of palm oil, 50 million of rice, and under a million each of cocoa and coffee. It's not impressive.

The world is getting hungrier, and toiling in a hot field all day for under $1 is not going to pay to educate your child in medicine, and neither will it pay the doctor's bill when a family member develops a serious illness. Your prescriptions for the world's poor to reject industry and fossil fuels are luddite and will perpetuate needless poverty and suffering (this sort of thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJLG85gn0bc is the direct result of poverty caused by an insufficiently industrialised economy). Industrial farming is a modern miracle. I am reminded of this fact when I pass the advert for the book on 'Austerity Britain' every morning at the train station. Calories were rationed, less than 60 years ago in Britain. It's easy to forget.

Thanks Meester.

I think the first point is that alternative jobs for these millions of small-scale farmers do not exist. If factories offering large-scale employment were to start production there, then yes, vast numbers of people would move from the countryside to the cities and in most ways would be better off. That is what happened in England when we industrialised, and has happened recently in South China, but I see little sign of it happening in most of the 'Third World'. Until the jobs are created, the masses are better off living in poverty on their farms than starving in the cities.

harryhound

purch wrote: »

The curse of the MSE forums strikes again :eek:

Rice settled limit-down for the third straight session, with the July contract settling at $21.78 per hundredweight

Only 6% of the worlds rice crop is traded internationally, so the US market price is a poor indicator of what is really happening to the supply of this inferior product. The gut feeling of the traders, perhaps bolstered by satellite intelligence, is that there could still be a major shortage.

Traders and old codgers like me can remember when the Russians did a brilliant job of keeping quiet their wheat crop failure and purchased all the USA surplus for a song, before the America woke up to what was happening.
I remember it because USA's run down rail roads got jammed up by crawling goods trains struggling to deliver huge quantities to the ports.