I’m sure you’ve all seen the disturbing images on your TV recently of riots over dwindling food supplies in Haiti and in Egypt.

And I’m sure you’ve heard about the rationing of rice by big stores in the US and on top of that, the dire predictions from the United Nations World Food program that up to a hundred million could starve in what the WFP calls “a silent tsunami” of hunger that is beginning to engulf the world.

Rice is at the center of this gathering global storm; a staple of diets in many asian and african countries, stocks have been dwindling for several years, partly becuase of drought, partly because of growing demand.. So now countries like Egypt, Vietnam, and Brazil, all major rice growers, are restricting exports.. And as a result prices are climbing, up around 70 per cent this year alone,  while supplies are falling… And that’s why parts of the third world have been convulsed by so-called food riots.

But does the specter of food rationing really loom over the United States…? Are the big box stores justified in limiting rice sales? No on both counts, according to the experts we’ve spoken to. Any crisis, they say, is, and will be, limited to poorer nations.

And American rice farmers say there is no problem at all with their crop this year, a vital point given that homegrown rice accounts for ninety per cent of all rice bought in America’s supermarkets.

Charley Matthews’ family grows rice on thousands of acres in northern California.. Like other American rice farmers he says the current public concern is driven by emotion rather than logic.

So while the cost of producing rice, and therefore the cost to the consumer, is climbing, America’s farmers say their rice will be in plentiful supply on supermarket shelves this summer.