Fuel prices are bad enough, but what the heck is happening to our food? Lots of weird things happening that I don’t recall seeing before, at least outside of wartime (yea, Iraq, I know).

No butter in Japan:

Where is the butter? — cry Japanese consumers who have been hunting everywhere for the dairy product. The drastic reduction in raw milk production, complicated by hikes in the price of grain as well as changes in the global patterns of dairy product consumption, have caused a serious butter shortage in Japan.

Sam’s and Costco Limits Rice Purchases:

The two biggest U.S. warehouse retail chains are limiting how much rice customers can buy because of what Sam’s Club, a division of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., called on Wednesday “recent supply and demand trends.”

They were some saying that it’s because people are hoarding rice. This stands out for me because (a) our local Asian Market (Say Hi, Burnet & North Loop) warned us to buy more rice, since prices were going up soon (and they did). Also, Evelyn’s mom in PR mentioned that people are buying rice like crazy, due to shortages and rising prices. It’s really hurting people, especially since a huge percentage of the world population relies on rice as their primary source of food.

I’ve also seen that a number of worldwide charities have had to greatly cut back on food programs, mainly due to the big jumps in cost.

It’s hard to believe that we’ve hit some sort of “peak food” (a la “peak oil”) situation, though I’m certainly not an expert on global agriculture. Anyone have ideas of why food is scarcer than normal?