Friday, April 18, 2008

No scripts

"There are no scripts on how to handle the crisis, either. In Asia, governments are putting in place measures to limit hoarding of rice after some shoppers panicked at price increases and bought up everything they could.

Even in Thailand, which produces 10 million more tons of rice than it consumes and is the world’s largest rice exporter, supermarkets have placed signs limiting the amount of rice shoppers are allowed to purchase.

But there is also plenty of nervousness and confusion about how best to proceed and just how bad the impact may ultimately be, particularly as already strapped governments struggle to keep up their food subsidies."

This is the situation: everybody is observing and no one knows what to do about it. All the article we read are descriptive: "this is what's happening: hunger, riots, droughts, biofuels" but no one has anything tangible to add about how to address the food crisis except band aid solutions: raise $500 millions for food aid.

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