PRICE OF RICE IN SAIGON JUMPS THIRTY PERCENT ~
- Before the Americans decided to export "freedom and democracy". to the mainland of Asia, Vietnam was one of the rice bowls of the world. Today rice has.to be imported all the way from the United States. Stocks are now so low that speculation and hoarding have become rampant. As a consequence, the price of rice in Saigon jumped 30% in a single month. . . oo
Specialists blamed "a combination of circumstances for the increase," according to a January 31 dispatch from Saigon to The New York Times. These include a delay in shipments from the United States, a 3% annual population increase, "an-exodus from rice~ growing regions to the cities and the abandonment of land because of the war..." .
Besides this, Ky's government has failed "to-offer rice farmers attractive prices" and this has led them t6 hold their rice in storage "in-the hope of getting more money."
The plain truth, of course, is that even if the American forces have been. providing the rice paddies with more fertilizer in the form of human flesh and blood, the napalming of the rice farmers and the spraying of their fields with toxic chemicals is scarcely conducive to improving the rice harvest. It.does, however, mean a bonanza for’ the big- rice growers in the U.S. : ee .