SINGAPORE — Asia is leading the world economy out of recession. The region's most populous nations — China, India and Indonesia — appear to doing particularly well, setting the pace for renewed growth in Northeast Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia.
Yet amid the buoyancy are concerns over food security and rice prices. World Bank President Robert Zoellick warned Nov. 25 that the combination of low interest rates, volatile commodity markets and poor harvests in some parts of Asia could make 2010 "another dangerous year for food prices in poor countries."
On the surface, the outlook for production of rice — Asia's staple food — seems solid enough. In October, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization forecast world output of milled rice this year would be 446 million tons, the second-biggest since 2000. But on Nov. 10 the U.S. Department of Agriculture had issued a lower forecast, saying that global output for 2009-2010 was expected to fall by 3 percent from a year earlier to 432 million tons, nearly 5 million tons less than the minimum needed to meet demand.