Cyclone Nargis ripped through the Southeast Asia nation of Myanmar on Saturday, leaving 22,000 dead and the country’s rice crop in ruins.

Myanmar, known as Burma until its independence in 1948, is one of the foremost exporters of rice with approximately 400,000 metric tons exported last year. While that figure is no match for the 9 million metric tons exported by its neighbor Thailand, the cyclone’s damage to the country’s fertile Irrawaddy delta came at a critical point in the rice harvest.

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"The cyclone certainly complicates matters," Paul Risley, a spokesman with the World Food Program in Bangkok, told The Wall Street Journal. "It blew through the critical rice-growing areas of the country and it seems the harvest was only partially completed. This could represent a substantial loss to the country’s rice output."

The timing is particularly devastating due to the soaring cost of rice, which makes up a large portion of the diet for half the world’s population. While rice prices have come down slightly in the past several weeks, the price is still three-fold what it was prior to the start of the year.

Only 7% of global rice production is traded internationally, which means any government intervention in the export or import markets could have a dramatic impact on rice supply and prices. And that means the global rice market is especially sensitive to natural disasters as well.

At a time when international aid organizations such as the United Nations’ World Food Program are struggling to deal with rising food costs, the devastation will stretch already thin food reserves as organizations work to meet the needs of those displaced by the cyclone. Prior to the disaster, the U.N.’s World Food Program had already stated soaring food prices would leave a $755 million shortfall in its $2.9 billion budget, forcing cuts in vital programs.

Even more troubling, at a time when nations such as India are already limiting exports, the damage from the cyclone could turn one of the last remaining rice exporters into a rice importer if Myanmar’s rice crop can no longer feed its 53 million citizens.

"If post-harvest losses turn out being large, localized food shortages in the short term may result," The Food and Agriculture Organization said, Reuters reported. "Such losses could also impair the country’s ability and government decision to export rice in 2008."

The FAO had expected Myanmar to export 600,000 metric tons this year.

With rice trading at $920 a metric ton, the potential loss in export income could be devastating for a country that was already on the U.N.’s watch list of 30 countries that could be adversely affected by the soaring costs of food staples.

News and Related Story Links:

• BBC News:
  Will Burma open its arms to aid?

• Reuters:
  WTO says cannot solve food price crisis

• Reuters India:
• Myanmar cyclone stirs more rice supply fears

• Money Morning:
  The Run on Rice Wears Thin: A 20% Correction Could Be in Store

• Money Morning:
  Six Ways to Protect Yourself – and Profit – From a Global Food Crisis That’s Here to Stay

The price of rice finally started to moderate this week, with rice futures sinking for a fifth straight day. Rice has retreated 11.6% on the Chicago Board of Trade since hitting an all-time high last Thursday.

But this decline is likely just the start for rice prices, which have been artificially inflated by government controls and may continue to plummet by as much as 20%.

Rice – which supplies one-fifth of the world’s calorie intake – really began its journey skyward last October, when India banned exports of non-basmati rice to protect the wildly popular grain from succumbing to inflationary pressures. Later that month, India eased the ban, but reapplied it last March.

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Faced with civil unrest brought on by rising food prices, other countries have been following suit. In just a few months…

• India banned exports of non-basmati rice after inflation hit a 14-year high.
• Egypt, which typically brings 1.4 million metric tons of rice to the world market each year, banned exports from April 1 to Sept. 30.
• Vietnam, after curtailing exports in March and April, extended a ban on rice sales through May.
• Brazil suspended rice exports, approximately 313,000 metric tons a year, in an effort to maintain price stability.
• Indonesia suspended exports of medium-grade rice exports to combat inflation.

The price of rice doubled, and in some cases tripled, in the first four months of 2008, according to BusinessWeek. U.S. long grain rice jumped from $400 a ton to $800 a ton. Indian Basmati rice soared 182% from $850 a ton to $2,400 a ton. And Thai jasmine shot up from $559 per ton to $1,125.

But the price surge had little to do with supply and demand. Instead, experts pointed to the protectionist measures by rice producers.

"The primary reasons for the recent price spike in rice are due to export bans and restrictions by several major exporters globally that have tightened supplies in the global market," Nathan Childs a rice specialist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture told Voice of America. "Overall though, the 2007-2008 rice crop is the largest on record and supplies are up a little bit from a year earlier."

Only 7% of global rice production is traded internationally, which means any government intervention in the export or import markets could have a dramatic impact on rice supply and prices. Traders, millers, wholesalers and retailers also began hoarding supplies to see how much higher prices would go. A weak U.S. dollar and higher costs for fertilizer and shipping also contributed to the rise.

Speculation among investors and consumers has run rampant in recent months, adding to political and economic pressures. As the run-up in commodities price steepened in the early part of the year, driving the price of corn and wheat to all-time highs, traders on the Chicago Board of Trade dove head first into the volatile rice market. Rice futures have gained slightly less than 80% in the past year as a result.

"We have enough food on this planet today to feed everyone," Adam Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Program told the Associated Press, adding that the way that access to that food is being distorted by perceptions of future markets is distorting access to that food.

"Real people and real lives are being affected by a dimension that is essentially speculative," Steiner said.

However, the market has begun to turnaround this week, with rice prices falling 11.6% from its April 24 peak. 

The drop accompanied news that Vietnam would produce enough rice to meet demand from exporters, as well as local consumers. The country also banned speculators from its domestic market.

Also, Thailand has announced it will release 2.1 million tons of rice from the state’s stockpiles for sale to the public to ensure that consumers pay moderate prices for the grain for the rest of the year.

Thailand is the world’s leading rice supplier and has repeatedly assured the public that it would not curb exports despite speculation to the contrary. The nation produces 18 to 20 million metric tons of milled rice each year, of which 9 million is consumed at home. The rest is exported.

Thailand has committed to the export of 8.75 to 9 million metric tons this year and remains confident it can meet that commitment, Reuters reported. In addition to causing a worldwide panic, going back on its word and imposing export curbs would be political suicide for the nations current governing party, which came into power largely on its populous farmer support. Almost half of Thailand’s 65 million people are involved in agriculture, which accounts for 11% of the nation’s GDP.

"I believe the government will not betray farmers who voted for them by imposing any export restrictions, which would cut export demand and adversely affect domestic prices," Paka-on Tipayatanadaja, a rice analyst at Kasikorn Research in Bangkok, told Reuters. "Farmers invested a lot to grow more rice after the government said it has to plans to curb export. The government has no chance to reverse the policy now."

Thai jasmine rice is one of the most popular types of rice in the world. U.S. imports of jasmine rice have jumped by 78% over the past ten years. One shopper outside a San Francisco Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST) stores told BusinessWeek that Thai jasmine rice was "the priced one, because of its smell."

The price of the fragrant rice has benefited greatly from the bullish rice market as its price has more than doubled. As they did so, American shoppers and restaurant owners began panic buying the popular scented rice prompting wholesale clubs like Costco and the Wal-Mart Stores Inc.-owned (WMT) Sam’s Club to limit customers’ purchases.

Fortunately for jasmine rice fans, it’s likely that the price of all Thai rice will continue to ease next few weeks, possibly by 20% according to the secretary general of the Thai Rice Exporters’ Association.

"The market is likely to correct up to 20% even if the bans by India and Vietnam remain," Korbsook Iamsuri, who is also managing director of Kamolkij Co. Ltd., told Reuters.

The benchmark Thai 100% B-grade white rice was quoted between $1,030 and $1,050 per metric ton, slightly below last week’s record of $1,080 per metric ton, Korbsook said. If she’s right, the price could adjust to $864 by mid-May. And if the price of Thai rice drops, it’s likely others will follow suit, as Thailand – which accounts for nearly a third of the global rice trade – is typically the standard bearer for global rice prices.

If rice prices persist at record levels, most experts expect that consumers will overcome cultural loyalties and switch to medium grade rice, like that grown in California and Arkansas. California will harvest approximately 4 billion pounds of rice this year, 40% of which will be exported. While it’s not as popular as its Asian counterparts, California rice has experienced a price jump of its own. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, California growers will get $20 per 100 pounds of rice this year, double the 2007 price. As a result the amount of rice being planted in the region is on the rise. Rice has been planted on an estimated 549,000 acres in California this year, up from 534,000 acres in 2007.

News and Related Story Links:

• BusinessWeek:
  Understanding the Global Rice Crisis

• Reuters:
  Thai rice export curbs would make no sense-analysts

• San Francisco Chronicle:
  Global rice squeeze hitting U.S. consumers

• Reuters:
  Thai rice prices may ease 20 pct

• Reuters:
  U.N. agencies weigh response to food crisis

• Bloomberg:
  Rice Drops to Two-Week Low in Chicago as Supply Concerns Ease

United Nations Agencies and the World Bank yesterday (Tuesday) set up a special task force and called on countries to stop restricting food exports – the latest evidence that an escalating global food shortage is threatening to spiral out of control.

"We consider that the dramatic escalation in food prices worldwide has evolved into an unprecedented challenge of global proportions," the United Nations said in a statement after the meeting.

The U.N. and World Bank comments followed a meeting of 27 international agency heads in Berne – the Swiss capital – where the group was hoping to start engineering some solutions to a growing worldwide food crisis that’s causing hunger to escalate, and that’s touched off hoarding and even riots in some of the poorer countries of the world.

The prices of such staple foods as wheat, rice, and corn have skyrocketed over the past year. The cash price for corn on the Chicago Board of Trade soared from $1.86 a bushel in the 2004-2005 marketing year to a record high $6.24 a bushel yesterday – a 235% jump.  Rice rose to a record high $25.07 per 100 pounds last Thursday as several of the world’s largest producers curbed exports.

According to the World Bank, worldwide food prices have risen a scorching 83% over the past three years. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Food Price Index – which measures the prevailing market prices of cereals, dairy products, meat, sugar and certain oils was 57% higher in March 2008 than a year earlier.

The president of the World Bank, Robert B. Zoellick, estimates that the spike in food prices could push 100 million people in low-income countries deeper into poverty, as food costs cut into already meager earnings.

Rising prices have already caused rioting in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Indonesia, Mozambique, Senegal, Haiti and others.  They’ve also translated into a $755 million shortfall in U.N.’s World Food Programme (WFP) budget, a gap U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon insists must be closed as soon as possible.

"Without full funding of these emergency requirements, we risk again the specter of widespread hunger, malnutrition, an social unrest on an unprecedented scale," he told reporters after the Berne meeting. The WFP aims to feed 73 million people this year.

The World Bank will double the amount it lends to agriculture in Africa over the next year to $800 million, Zoellick said calling for an "integrated international response."

Zoellick and others also encouraged countries to lift export bans, citing Ukraine’s lifting of such a ban on wheat last week as an example. Ban, the U.N. secretary-general,  urged countries such as Brazil and Egypt to follow suit by lifting export bans that have driven the price of rice significantly higher in recent months.

The World Trade Organization (WTO), represented at Berne by its Director General, Pascal Lamy, said it would aid the effort by "reinforcing discipline in trade distorting subsidies."

"It’s well known that trade-distorting farm subsidies from rich countries have damaged food production in developing countries," Lamy said.

The WTO has issued similar warnings in trying to advance trade negotiations in Doha, Qatar, where for seven years, the group has unsuccessfully lobbied countries to liberalize agricultural trade. Proponents of the Doha round say an international compromise would stabilize food markets, lower tariffs, spur food production, and add $100 billion a year to a weakening global economy by spurring trade and growth.

As envisioned, the U.N.-formed task force will bring together the leaders of all the United Nations agencies, funds and programs that focus on food, as well as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Under the leadership of Ban, the U.N. secretary-general, the task force will then establish plan-of-action priorities, and then follow to make sure that they’re carried out.

The surge in food prices is being attributed to a number of factors – including increased demand in developing countries, higher fuel costs, a drought in Australia, the use of crops for biofuels, and speculation on global commodity markets.

However, one key catalyst is almost always left out. And ironically, that catalyst could raise the stakes today (Wednesday). U.S. Federal Reserve policymakers are expected to conclude a two-day Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting today by announcing a reduction in short-term interest rates – the seventh such reduction since the middle part of September.

And many experts believe those rate cuts have been highly inflationary. They’ve helped send the U.S. greenback into a nosedive against other major world currencies, which has fed into major upsurges in the price of energy- and food-related commodities. If the Fed continues on this course, it could cause worldwide hunger to spike – along with food prices.

Just last week, United Nations’ WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran warned that a "silent tsunami" of hunger is sweeping the globe because of soaring food prices. The Fed rate cut expected today will only make that worse. [Check out this Money Morning Special Investment Research Report for several strategies that will allow investors to protect themselves - and even profit - from the expected continued increase in global food prices].

"This is the new face of hunger – the millions of people who were not in the urgent hunger category six months ago, but now are," the WFP’s Sheeran said. "The response calls for large-scale, high-level action by the global community, focused on emergency and longer-term solutions."

News and Related Story Links:

• Reuters:
  U.N. and World Bank say to tackle food crisis.

• Money Morning Commentary:
  The Fed’s Dilemma: Rescue the Housing Market, or Feed the Poor?

• Money Morning Special Investment Report:
  Six Ways to Protect Yourself – and Profit – From a Global Food Crisis That’s Here to Stay.

When the leader of the United Nation’s World Food Programme warned that a "silent tsunami" of hunger is sweeping the globe because of soaring food prices, a lot of folks probably viewed it as just another clever sound bite tossed off by a bureaucrat.

Don’t you believe it.

I’ll grant you, the alliterative moniker for the crisis cooked up by WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran was clever – if not downright brilliant: It was picked up by dozens of global news services and was actually featured prominently in quite a few headlines. It’s also one of the most accurate descriptions of a growing global crisis that I’ve ever seen.

You see, the "silent tsunami" is real. And as the damage escalates, the silence will devolve into a grating global cacophony of pain, poverty and protests. The folks at the U.N., the World Bank, and in global capital cities from Beijing to Washington all have vowed to fight back. In Great Britain, the government this week hosted a world summit at its offices on Downing Street.

But there’s a problem. And it’s a pretty big one: You see, even the folks who are planning to battle back against the "silent tsunami" aren’t fully armed in that they don’t really understand all its causes.

Nor do the victims understand the very real steps that they can take to protect themselves – let alone how to offset at least some of the damage by profiting on the very real global trends that have whipped up this worldwide food firestorm.

Let me explain …

Fanning the Flames of a Global Food Crisis

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By "silent tsunami," Sheeran is referring to soaring worldwide food prices – the first truly global food crisis since World War II. The WFP says the crisis already threatens 20 million children in the world’s most-poverty-stricken regions, and has ignited demonstrations and protests in Africa, across Asia, and throughout the Caribbean. This unrest even led to deaths in Haiti and in Cameroon, where civil servant Samuel Ebwelle told a journalist from The Associated Press that the thought of continued escalations in the price of food scares him deeply.

"We are getting to the worst period of our life," said Ebwelle, 51. "We’ve had to reduce the number of meals we take a day from three to two. Breakfast no longer exists on our menu."
World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick claims that as many as 100 million people could be forced deeper into poverty. And U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says the soaring price of food is undermining a goal of slashing worldwide poverty in half by 2015.

So just how bad is this "tsunami?"

According to the World Bank, worldwide food prices have risen a scorching 83% over the past three years. The price of rice – a staple of daily diets all across Asia – has actually doubled in the last five weeks. [Here in the United States, the Sam's Club warehouse stores unit of Wal-Mart Stories Inc. (WMT) actually began limiting rice purchases yesterday (Wednesday)].
Research such as the World Bank stats certainly give the crisis a somewhat daunting feel, but it’s when an American consumer takes a look at actual grocery store prices that the impact finally starts to hit home. Consider these prices from a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics study:

• A dozen large Grade A eggs that two years ago cost $1.33 now costs a U.S. shopper $2.17 – 63% more.
• A pound of whole wheat bread has jumped 42% during that same period, moving from $1.32 to $1.88.
• A gallon of whole milk has jumped 20%, moving from $3.22 to nearly $3.90.
• And a pound of white flour, a key ingredient in so many things, has soared 39%, from 33 cents to 46 cents.

Add in the impact of rising fuel and energy prices – regular gasoline that consumers use to drive to their jobs or run family errands is up 18% in the past year, while the diesel fuel that powers the trucks and trains that deliver goods from producers to market has soared 44%.

The bottom line is this: In the U.S. market, inflationary forces have struck hard at staple goods – the essentials like groceries, gasoline and healthcare – causing them to soar, while having very little impact on luxury goods that many American consumers are avoiding right now anyway.

Because food and energy costs are backed out of – not included in – the so-called "core" rate of inflation, domestic pricing pressures still look fairly benign, with inflation running at a tad bit more than 4%.

But clearly the "real" inflation rate is much higher. And U.S. consumers and investors know it, because they’re worried – if not afraid.

According to a USA Today/Gallup Poll released yesterday (Wednesday), 73% of the American consumers surveyed cited soaring food costs in the form of rising grocery bills as a concern, while nearly half said that food inflation has caused a "hardship" for their households.

That’s here in the United States. Let’s now take a look overseas, where the rising prices aren’t merely a "hardship" – they’re a disaster.

Causes, Effects, Solutions

The U.N.’s World Food Programme says the soaring food prices will leave a $755 million shortfall in its $2.9 billion budget, forcing cuts in vital programs.
"This is the new face of hunger – the millions of people who were not in the urgent hunger category six months ago, but now are," Sheeran said. "The response calls for large-scale, high-level action by the global community, focused on emergency and longer-term solutions."

But here’s the crux of that problem: Before you can fix a problem, you have to understand its root causes. And it’s clear to us that very few folks really see the big picture.
When asked about the causes for the massive run-up in food prices, "experts" listed many of the same catalysts:

• Rising fuel costs.
• The use of certain foods – such as corn – for the creation of biofuels that are being developed to combat global warming and to take up the slack for the increase in conventional fuel prices.
• Rising populations.
• Growing demand from emerging economies – especially China and India.
• Floods and droughts that are being blamed on ongoing climate changes.

Unfortunately, they forgot two causes – and they’re not small: The first is the implosion of the U.S. subprime mortgage bubble, and the second is a greenback that’s so weak that it’s threatening to disappear altogether. Both are part and parcel of inflation.

By creating all the cheap money that created, first, the U.S. Internet stocks bubble and, second, the U.S. housing bubble, the U.S. Federal Reserve essentially created the subprime mortgage bubble. When that burst, as all bubbles must, it created a global financial crisis that forced all the world’s key central banks to create additional liquidity in an attempt to basically bail out the world’s developed economies [and lest we try and blame the United States for all of this, let's not forget that Great Britain has a humdinger of a housing bubble that's deflating, but hasn't quite fully collapsed].

The central banks have all pumped capital into the global financial system, and the U.S. central bank has since Sept. 18 been waging a rate-cutting campaign as aggressive as any we’ve seen in decades.

Unfortunately for all the starving folks abroad, these rate reductions are highly inflationary: They continue to force the greenback ever lower, while at the same time helping send commodity prices higher and higher.

When the U.S. central bank first cut rates in mid-September, it took the benchmark Federal Funds rate from 5.25% to 4.75%. According to Money Morning Contributing Editor Martin Hutchinson, oil closed that day at $82 per barrel, gold at $770 per ounce, and the CCI Commodity Price Index at 435.

"The flood of money that has been poured into the world’s financial system by the Fed and the world’s other central banks in the last seven months has had the anticipated impact," Hutchinson said recently. Now, "oil is trading at $119, gold is at $936 and the CCI Index is at 545. While Americans consume only moderate quantities of raw commodities as a percentage of [their] total consumption (there is little, if any, iron ore in an IPod, for example), for poor people in the Third World, commodities still form the bulk of their budget. It’s no wonder, then, that we’d heard justified calls from the World Bank and others to devote more money to fighting starvation."

Here’s the problem: To keep the U.S. economy out of a protracted recession, additional rate cuts may be needed. Indeed, many housing-sector observers are clamoring for the reductions in interest rates as a way of reviving that critical part of the U.S. economy.

And it would jump-start the housing market – directly by reducing mortgage costs and indirectly by causing inflation to accelerate. If inflation in 2009 is 15%, and people get pay rises of about that level, houses won’t look so expensive by the end of that year, Hutchinson says.

Unfortunately, the most vicious inflation would come in the form of higher energy and commodity prices. And that would cause already-high food prices to surge even higher.

Clearly, the U.S. dollar, the U.S. economy, and its housing market will remain as challenges for quite some time.

But the reality is that the solution to the food problem is going to be a long-term deal anyway. Fortunately, the solution dovetails in perfectly with another powerful global trend – this one quite positive in nature, and potentially quite profitable.

I’m talking about the "Global Ag Boom."

When Agriculture Meets Science

When most people think about biotechnology, they only consider such things as stem-cell research, genetic engineering and curing cancer.

But there’s another aspect of biotech, and it’s just as powerful a concept. I’m talking, of course, about the genetic engineering of crops and seeds, and the scientific tweaking of fertilizers and herbicides – either to maximize their effectiveness, or to customize them so that they will flourish in very specific climates.

Long-term, that global "Ag Boom" is the answer to the current food crisis. It’s also how you can offset the rising costs on the consumer side of your personal ledger by ramping up profits from this very same trend on the investment side of your own ledger.

Interestingly, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown appears to be one of the enlightened ones involved in this search for a food-crisis fix. While noting that there was a "world food crisis" under way that threatens to "roll back progress made in recent years to lift millions out of poverty," Brown then called for an "agricultural revolution" for farmers to produce higher-yielding crops.

Ag Boom Plays to Make Now

First of all, you have to hedge your expenses and position yourself to profit from the worldwide surge in commodities prices. Investment guru Jim Rogers – one of the first to correctly predict this trend several years ago – says it’s a long-term play with plenty of room to run.

In a recent interview in Singapore with Money Morning Investment Director Keith Fitz-Gerald, Rogers said he’s continuing to tell investors to buy commodities – including agricultural commodities.

"We’ve advised our readers to be long oil, long resources and long commodities in general," Rogers said. "The equation was very simple: The world is depleting resources roughly four times faster than they’re being replaced. And, with oil in particular, unless you’ve got a few million years to wait, Mother Nature’s not making [any more] any time soon."

To invest in the commodities boom, look at these two exchange-traded funds (ETFs):

• Van Eck recently launched its Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF (MOO), a fund that really reflects the breadth of the agriculture sector, apportioning its holdings across such sectors as chemicals (34%), agri-product operations (33%), equipment (24%), livestock operations (6%), and ethanol/bio-diesel (2%).

• The Deutsche Bank AG (DB) managed Power Shares Agricultural Fund (DBA) is intended to reflect the performance of commodities in the agricultural sector – soybeans (31%), wheat (28%), corn (23%), and sugar (16%).

For several direct plays, consider these three stocks:

• Take a close look at Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. (POT), a Canada-based integrated fertilizer and related industrial and feed products company. The stock has had a very strong run, but two weeks ago the company and a rival both said that Chinese customers had agreed to pay $576 per ton for potash this year, a massive jump from the $176 per ton rate of 2007. The accord was for 1 million tons of fertilizer.

• E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. (DD) – commonly known as DuPont – produces crop-protection chemicals and seed hybrids, which are in huge demand globally as countries work to accommodate soaring incomes and growing populations in emerging markets such as China. Earlier this year, the firm received approval for two new herbicides that are designed to protect soybeans and wheat – two commodity crops whose prices have soared to record levels. DuPont is very well positioned – because of its products, and because it’s serving customers in more than 70 countries.

• The other such player to consider is the St. Louis-based Monsanto Co. (MON), who recently reported fiscal-second-quarter earnings doubled from the previous year on the strength of its corn seed and herbicide sales.  Once highly controversial, Monsanto’s genetically engineered products have established a strong market position in agricultural markets throughout the world. Farmers in China and India planted more than 17 million acres of biotech crops last year, according to BusinessWeek. Approximately 7% of the world’s farmland acreage is planted with genetically modified crops. While some pockets of controversy remain – and likely always will – Monsanto’s financial performance indicates that acceptance of these necessary products is growing.

Finally, if you believe that biofuels – and other forms of alternative energy sources – will be an inevitable part of the global future, consider the following "green" ETF: The PowerShares WilderHill Clean Energy (PBW), one of the better-quality funds that focus on "clean" technology as determined by the WilderHill Clean Energy Index.

[Editor's Note: Check out Money Morning Contributing Editor Martin Hutchinson's new investment research report that details three ways to profit from the ongoing surge in oil prices. And look here for details on how you can obtain a free copy of investment guru Jim Rogers' new bestseller, "A Bull in China," which details profit plays for that market.]

News and Related Story Links:

• USA Today:
  Dire warning from World Food Program.

• USA Today:
  Poll: Food costs a major worry for consumers.

• ABC News:
  London summit to tackle ‘tsunami’ of rising food prices.

• Web Site:
  The World Food Programme.

• Bloomberg News:
  Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club Restricts Purchase of Some Rice.

• Money Morning Exclusive Interview (Part I):
  Jim Rogers: More Pain for the Greenback, and the Failure of the Federal Reserve. 

• Money Morning Exclusive Interview (Part II):
  Jim Rogers: China’s Economic Advance is All But Unstoppable.

• Forbes:
  China Pays up for Potash.