The New York Sun reported this week that major retailers like Costco have recently imposed purchase limits on commodity foods like rice, oil and flour. It's spotty, on a store by store basis, but people are noticing and some consumers (as well as restaurant owners concerned about rapid price hikes from distributors) are hoarding. And worldwide garin reserves are at an almost all-time low, resulting in a supply chain that has very little inventory to draw from. In the Sun article, survival blogger and former Army intelligence officer James Rawles noted that "even if people increased their purchasing by 20%, all the store shelves would be wiped out.”

Maybe Bush will recall troops from Iraq to start baking bread, a la Egypt's Mubarak.

Rationing food. Hoarding food. Here in the US. Huh.

[Classic photo by Margaret Bourke-White. Look back at the past few weeks of Eat My Florida for more on the World Food Crisis.]

This article appears in Apr 23-29, 2008.