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City: A Guidebook for the Urban Age.

Freer Trade Could Fill the World's Rice Bowl TWITTER LINKEDIN SIGN IN TO E-MAIL OR SAVE THIS PRINT REPRINTS SHARE By TYLER COWEN Published: April 27, 2008 RISING food prices mean hunger for millions and also political unrest, as has already been seen in Haiti, Egypt and Ivory Coast. Yes, more expensive energy and bad weather are partly at fault, but the real question is why adjustment hasn't been easier. A big problem is that the world doesn't have enough trade in foodstuffs. Enlarge This Image Alanah Torralba/European Pressphoto Agency Filipino port workers unload sacks of rice imported from Vietnam to be distributed by the National Food Authority. Related Times Topics: Rice Blogrunner: Reactions From Around the Web Managing Globalization: Can rice Farming Be Laissez-Faire? The damage that trade restrictions cause is probably most evident in the case of rice. Although rice is the major foodstuff for about half of the world, it is highly protected and regulated. Only about 5 to 7 percent of the world's rice production is traded across borders; that's unusually low for an agricultural commodity. So when the price goes up - indeed, many varieties of rice have roughly doubled in price since 2007 - this highly segmented market means that the trade in rice doesn't flow to the places of highest demand. Poor rice yields are not the major problem. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that global rice production increased by 1 percent last year and says that it is expected to increase 1.8 percent this year. That's not impressive, but it shouldn't cause starvation. The more telling figure is that over the next year, international trade in rice is expected to decline more than 3 percent, when it should be expanding. The decline is attributable mainly to recent restrictions on rice exports in rice-producing countries like India, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, Cambodia and Egypt. At first glance, this seems understandable, bec

"The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan was almost totally isolated from the rest of the world until the 1970s. The internet and television arrived only in 1999. Although it stepped into the internet age very late, social media websites like Facebook and Twitter have caught on rapidly. Today there are an estimated 80,000 Facebook users in Bhutan - more than 10% of its population."

"Over the next two decades, the world will see a burst of urban expansion at a speed and on a scale never before witnessed in human history. But not all the world will take part. When you hear about the coming urban age, it's really a story about rising Asia and the two countries that will define this new era of the megacity: China and India. "

"A "staggering" number of children around the world are dying before the age of five, according to the United Nation's child agency. Unicef' s latest figures estimate every day 17,000 under-fives die - 6.3 million a year - from largely preventable causes. This is despite the overall rate of infant mortality having been halved in the past two decades."