Francis Ndege isn\u2019t sure if his customers in Africa\u2019s largest slum can afford to keep buying rice from him.
Prices for rice grown in Kenya soared a while ago because of higher fertilizer prices and a yearslong drought in the Horn of Africa that has reduced production. Cheap rice imported from India had filled the gap, feeding many of the hundreds of thousands of residents in Nairobi\u2019s Kibera slum who survive on less than $2 a day.
But that is changing. The price of a 25-kilogram (55-pound) bag of rice has risen by a fifth since June. Wholesalers are yet to receive new stocks since India, the world\u2019s largest exporter of rice by far, said last month that it would ban some rice shipments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s an effort by the world\u2019s most populous nation to control domestic prices ahead of a key election year \u2014 but it\u2019s left a yawning gap of around 9.5 million metric tons (10.4 tons) of rice that people around the world need, roughly a fifth of global exports. Francis Ndege isn\u2019t sure if his customers in Africa\u2019s largest slum can afford to keep buying rice from him.Prices for rice grown in Kenya soared a while ago because of higher fertilizer prices and a yearslong drought in the Horn of Africa that has reduced production. Cheap rice imported from India had filled the gap, feeding many of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17016,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[21847,21849,21848],"class_list":["post-17015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-global-food-security-at-a-crossroads","tag-price-spikes","tag-rice-shortages"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17015"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17017,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17015\/revisions\/17017"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cI\u2019m really hoping the imports keep coming,\u201d said Ndege, 51, who\u2019s sold rice for 30 years.
He isn\u2019t the only one. Global food security is already under threat since Russia halted an\u00a0agreement allowing Ukraine to export wheat\u00a0and the\u00a0El Nino\u00a0weather phenomenon hampers rice production. Now, rice prices are soaring \u2014 Vietnam\u2019s rice export prices, for instance, have reached a 15-year high \u2014 putting the most vulnerable people in some of the poorest nations at risk.
The world is at an \u201cinflection point,\u201d said Beau Damen, a natural resources officer with the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization based in Bangkok.
Even before India\u2019s restrictions, countries already were\u00a0frantically buying rice\u00a0in anticipation of scarcity later when the El Nino hit, creating a supply crunch and\u00a0spiking prices.
What could make the situation worse is if India\u2019s ban on non-basmati rice creates a domino effect, with other countries following suit. Already, the United Arab Emirates has suspended rice exports to maintain its domestic stocks. Another threat is if\u00a0extreme weather\u00a0damages rice crops in other countries.
An\u00a0El Nino is a natural, temporary and occasional warming\u00a0of part of the Pacific Ocean that shifts global weather patterns, and\u00a0climate change\u00a0is making them stronger. Scientists expect the one underway to expand to supersized levels, and, in the past, they have resulted in extreme weather ranging from drought to\u00a0flooding.
The impact would be felt worldwide. Rice consumption in Africa has been growing steadily, and most\u00a0countries are heavily dependent on imports. While nations with growing populations like Senegal have been trying to grow more of their own rice \u2014 many are struggling.
Amadou Khan, a 52-year-old unemployed father of five in Dakar, says his children eat rice with every meal except breakfast, which they often have to skip when he\u2019s out of work.
\u201cI am just getting by \u2014 sometimes, I\u2019ve trouble taking care of my kids,\u201d he said.
Imported rice \u2014 70% of which comes from India \u2014 has become prohibitively expensive in Senegal, so he\u2019s eating homegrown rice that costs two-thirds as much.
Senegal will turn to other trading partners like Thailand or Cambodia for imports, though the West African country is not \u201cfar from being self-sufficient\u201d on rice, with over half of its demand grown locally, Agriculture Ministry spokesperson Mamadou A\u00efcha Ndiaye said.
Asian countries, where 90% of the world\u2019s rice is grown and eaten, are struggling with production. The Philippines was carefully\u00a0managing water\u00a0in anticipation of less rain amid the El Nino when\u00a0Typhoon Doksuri\u00a0battered its northern rice-producing region, damaging $32 million worth of rice crops \u2014 an estimated 22% of its annual production.
The archipelago nation is the second-largest importer of rice after China, and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has underscored the need to ensure adequate buffers.
India\u2019s rice restrictions also were motivated by erratic weather: An\u00a0uneven monsoon\u00a0along with a looming El Nino meant that the partial ban was needed to stop food prices from rising, Indian food policy expert Devinder Sharma said.
The restrictions will take offline nearly half the country\u2019s usual rice exports this year, said Ashok Gulati of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relation. Repeated restrictions make India an unreliable exporter, he added.
\u201cThat\u2019s not good for the export business because it takes years to develop these markets,\u201d Gulati said.
Vietnam, another major rice exporter, is hoping to capitalize. With rice export prices at a 15-year high and expectations that annual production to be marginally higher than last year, the Southeast Asian nation is trying to keep domestic prices stable while boosting exports.
The Agriculture Ministry says it\u2019s working to increase how much land in the Mekong Delta is dedicated to growing rice by around 500 square kilometers \u2014 an area larger than 90,000 football fields.
Already the Philippines is in talks with Vietnam to try to get the grain at lower prices, while Vietnam also looks to target the United Kingdom, which receives much of its rice from India.
But exporters like Charoen Laothamatas in neighboring Thailand are wary. The Thai government expects to ship more rice than it did last year, with its exports in the first six months of the year 15% higher than the same period of 2022.
But the lack of clarity about what India will do next and concerns about the El Nino means Thai exporters are reluctant to take orders, mill operators are unwilling to sell and farmers have increased the prices of unmilled rice, said Laothamatas, president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association.
With prices fluctuating, exporters don\u2019t know what prices to quote \u2014 because prices may spike again the next day.
\u201cAnd no one wants to take the risk,\u201d Laothamatas said.
apnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"