How the World Works – Salon.com

According to the FAO, “Average world rice consumption per person is set to increase by 0.5 percent to 57.3 kilo per year, up from 57 kilo in 2007.”

Whether that means going from one meal a day to two or three, or a Western-style epidemic of ballooning portion-sizes, the FAO doesn’t say. But it should give some pause to those who would blame the spread of biofuels for everything that is suddenly awry in grain markets. While it is true that competition from other crops (corn, soy) is depressing rice production in the United States, almost everywhere else in the world, rice harvests are booming — including Africa, where the FAO reports that “large expansions” are “anticipated in Ivory Coast, Egypt, Ghana, Guinea, Mali and Nigeria.”