Global food security is at crossroads as rice shortages and surging prices hit the most vulnerable
abcnews.go.comCountries worldwide are scrambling to secure rice after a partial ban on exports by India cut global supplies by roughly a fifth
Francis Ndege isn’t sure if his customers in Africa’s 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's 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's largest exporter of rice by far, said last month that it would ban some rice shipments.
It's an effort by the world’s most populous nation to control domestic prices ahead of a key election year — but it’s 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.
“I’m really hoping the imports keep coming,” said Ndege, 51, who's sold rice for 30 years.
He isn’t the only one. Global food security is already under threat since Russia halted an agreement allowing Ukraine to export wheat and the El Nino weather phenomenon hampers rice production. Now, rice prices are soaring — Vietnam’s rice export prices, for instance, have reached a 15-year high — putting the most vulnerable people in some of the poorest nations at risk.
The world is at an “inflection point," said Beau Damen, a natural resources officer with the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization based in Bangkok.
Even before India’s restrictions, countries
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