Pushed by higher prices, immigrants in US stocking up on rice

RICHMOND: Shoppers surveyed shelves loaded with rice at the Ranch 99 Asian supermarket, chatting in languages from Mandarin to Portuguese as they hunted for their favourite varieties and compared prices before heaving 23-kilogram bags into their carts.

Skyrocketing prices and media reports of a rice shortage are driving many people in the US, including Asian, Hispanic, and Indian immigrants, to stock up on rice - a once inexpensive staple that is reaching record-high prices across the country. In Indian corner markets and warehouse-sized supermarkets specialising in Asian goods, customers who usually take home a 9-kilogram bag are taking two, or even reaching for the 23-kilogram bag.

"It's all in the news, on TV and newspapers," said Grace Yap, originally of China, who was shopping at Ranch 99.

Emphasizing that there is no rice shortage in the United States, economists and commodity traders blame the price hikes confronting US consumers on everything from the weather in producing countries to the increased buying power of countries such as China. Chief among those factors was the decision by India, Vietnam, China, Egypt, Cambodia and Brazil to curtail exports to protect prices at home, said Nathan Childs, an economist and rice expert with the US Department of Agriculture.

"People are so worried, everything is going up so much. It's so crazy," said Mahinder Parmar, owner of Milan, a Berkeley, California store selling everything from Indian music to sweets, instruments and spices.

Seeking to tame rising rice prices, which have more than tripled since January, Thailand proposed an OPEC-style cartel yesterday with major rice exporters Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam to give them more control over international rice prices.

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