Fancy that! Rice plantings up, poppies down

by Jeremy on May 15, 2008

FAO announced a couple of days ago that “Rice production in Asia, Africa and Latin America is forecast to reach a new record level in 2008″. I’m astounded. Imagine that. Farmers respond to higher prices by planting more. And in other press-stopping news, the Corriere della Sera said yesterday that farmers in Afghanistan are abandoning fusty old opium poppies for wheat, lured by a tripling of wheat prices. Right, that’s going to continue.

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Inoculated Mind May 17, 2008 at 1:21 am

Hilarious! BTW – your second link is broken – leads to the same place as the first.

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Jeremy May 18, 2008 at 4:15 pm

Ooops. Thanks for that. Fixed now.

Strangely, maize plantings in the US are forecast to drop 8%, while soybeans increase 18% and wheat by 6%, according to this report. I haven’t been able to find more recent estimates.

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