Precious commodity: Residents with subsidised rice in Manila recently. President Gloria Arroyo has declared war on hoarders and is using the military to move supplies of subsidised rice. The global food crisis reached the U.S. on Wednesday as big retailers began rationing sales of rice in response to bulk purchases by customers alarmed by rocketing prices of staple foods.

Famine relief operations are underway in Mizoram as the remote state is hit by acute food shortage after an army of rats devoured rice crops. According to the State's Food and Supplies department, this year, the food shortage has affected about 630,000 people, nearly 70 per cent of the 900,000esidents of Mizoram. However, no starvation deaths have been reported so far. The people of Mizoram fear bamboo flowering, the harbinger of famine.

Food crisis has been looming in the northern parts of Taplejung district after the Chinese authorities sealed Olangchungola border point since the last five months. The locals of Olanchungola, Yangma, Ghunsa, Phale, Topkegola and adjoining villages are finding difficulties now to manage foodstuffs. People living in the northern parts of Taplejung depend upon Tibetan markets for food and other essential goods. As the Olanchungola has been sealed since long, the villagers have started coming to the district headquarters in search of food.

Samake Bakary sells rice from wooden basins at Abobote market in the northern suburbs of Abidjan in C

Edie Scientists call for radical changes to agriculture (22 April 2008) Food production will have to change radically to continue to feed the world in the face of climate change, a major new report by more than 400 scientists has said. The study, published by the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), was presented to an intergovernmental plenary in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Record global food prices will be on the agenda of the Group of Eight heads of state summit in July for the first time in almost 30 years, amid mounting concerns about the social, political and economic impact of the food crisis. The International Monetary Fund on Monday gave its starkest warning about the impact of rising commodities, saying food and oil prices "risk becoming a destabilising force in the global economy'. Yasuo Fukuda, Japan's prime minister, said in a letter to his G8 colleagues that soaring food prices were posing "imminent and serious' global challenges.

Rick Wagoner, General Motors' president and chief executive, has dismissed United Nations research that links biofuel production to rising food prices as "shockingly misinformed". The blunt assessment by the head of the world's largest car company reinvigorates intense debate about ostensible social costs and environmental benefits of biofuels, a burgeoning industry some analysts say crowds out food production. "If you look at what's causing higher [bio]fuel prices, the cost of corn is a very small part of that," Mr Wagoner said at the Auto China show in Beijing yesterday.

Malaysia will spend $1.3bn to achieve food security and turn the Borneo state of Sarawak into a "rice bowl' for the nation, in response to surging agricultural prices and fears of shortages. The plan to stockpile food and increase domestic production of rice, fruits and vegetables would bring Malaysia closer to self-sufficiency, Abdullah Badawi, prime minister, said at the weekend.