25 Apr
Fried, boiled or steamed, rice is synonymous with food inthis region but with wide disparities in national wealth andpaddy output, Asian consumers are differently affected byprices of Thai grain hitting $1,000 a tonne.
In the Philippines, Indonesia and Bangladesh, three of thetop four world rice importers with millions of poor betweenthem, some people are having to scrimp on already meagerbudgets and skip meals to ensure they can still feed theirfamilies a daily helping of the cereal.
"What can I do? Rice prices soar, we have to follow them,"said Rudin, a 28-year-old shopper in Indonesia's capital,Jakarta adding he was not in a position to pile up stocksbecause he had limited income.
Experts say there are signs the dramatic internationalprice situation may improve in the months ahead as moreharvests hit markets and importers ease back on purchases.
A near tripling in the world benchmark, Thai 100 percent Bgrade wide rice, was triggered after exporting nations curbedshipments to cool domestic inflation.
Prices on most local Asian markets have not jumped as mucheither because countries are self-sufficient in rice or becauseimporting nations only need to buy a fraction of nationaldemand and subsidize those purchases to poor consumers.
But local prices have still risen significantly and whilethey wait for them to ease, many Asians have little choice butto tighten their belts or queue in the tropical heat to buycheap government stocks of the grain.
"We have to stand on the line for up to six hours to grab abagful of rice. Often we go back empty handed as supplies runout," said Mariam Begum, who works as a house maid in theBangladeshi capital Dhaka.
"To stand in the queue, I take half-day leave every dayfrom my employers and have also brought my only son out ofschool to stand in another queue," said the 45-year old motherof four.
NO PANIC
With the exception of Bangladesh, where some factoryworkers went on the rampage this month, Asian consumers havenot taken to the streets to vent their frustration at therising cost of food and fuel.
And with rice prices starting to ease in some countries,the hope is that the situation, which has been volatile inparts of Africa and in Haiti, will remain calm in Asia.
"Personally, I don't see panic," said Kazuyuki Tsurumi, therepresentative of the United Nation's Food and AgricultureOrganisation (FAO) in the Philippines.
The FAO has said that food riots will spread in developingcountries unless world leaders take major steps to reduceprices.
"There's really no rice supply shortage," said LizaBalarit, a rice retailer at a public market in Manila. "Only ashortage of money to buy it."
In affluent countries such as South Korea and Singapore,many people are able and willing to absorb price increasesrather than cut back on their favorite staple.
In Japan, some budget-conscious consumers are even turningto home-grown rice, which because of various governmentprograms has a fairly stable price, in the face of soaringcosts for imported grains such as wheat, which is pushing upthe cost of bread, beer and noodles.
"These days I am using more rice in our meals, along withsome fish and miso soup, because bread and pasta have becometoo expensive," said one Japanese housewife.
In China, a net rice exporter, some people are even unawarethat the grain has hit a record high on world markets.
"I am not going to hoard any rice, prices are very stablehere," said Mr Hu, an office worker in Beijing.
"Is the international price at a record high? I didn't evenknow that."
(Additional reporting by Manny Mogato in Manila, Ruma Paulin Dhaka, Mita Valina Liem in Jakarta, the Beijing newsroom andRisa Maeda and Linda Sieg in Tokyo; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
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