A nicely written, short-ish article titled "Understanding the Global Rice Crisis" from BusinessWeek.com pretty much delivers what it promises. The author doesn't try to display diverse opinions, which is a shame, but at the very least this one helped me put some facts into place.
General themes:
Rice prices are going up because people are growing less rice. Why? Because people prefer to grow corn and meat. Why? Because corn provides biofuel (ethanol) and meat is what rich people eat.
Another reason is that merchants and even whole countries are hoarding rice, for fear that there won't be enough, which causes an artificial shortage.
The result? Poor people can't afford the basic food they're used to relying on.
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In the comments section, as usual, some interesting comments. This time not so informative about the content, as about the readers. The very first commentator worries that beer prices will go up, since beer is produced of rice.
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