let them eat dirt

MIAMI -- Some stores in South Florida and across the U.S. are placing rice restrictions on their customers after an Australian drought crippled rice production. Throughout the U.S. and in Miami, merchants and restaurateurs said the price of rice is high.

As the world faces its first global food crisis since World War II, even American consumers are starting to fret. Media reports are starting to trickle in about grocers limiting some food purchases, while Costco Wholesale Corp. is seeing higher-than-usual demand for staple foods such as rice and flour as consumers appear to be stocking up.

It would be inhuman to understate the global food crisis. With food prices up as much as 45 per cent since the end of 2006, El Salvador's poor eat about half as much food as they did a year ago. In Haiti, a destitute population is turning increasingly to mud patties made of dirt, oil and sugar, which at least quieten the stomach.