It’s not unethical to buy rice, unless you waste it. Take that, wedding rice throwers!
The economics and the ethics are, as dangermom aptly observes, more interrelated than you may think. If we act without understanding the real consequences of our actions, consequences that occur secondary to the economics of the situation, then our actions may have unintended negative consequences. Such would be unethical behavior.
To do something because it makes you feel like you are doing something ethical when it makes very little positive impact is not ethical. It is smug.
More positive impact would be made if you were to keep your own frivolous purchases in check enough that you can quietly donate even very modestly to the World Food Program and to invest enough energy in understanding the economics and other related issues to feel that you can knowledgeably advocate for policies that will actually make a meaningful long term impact. Such actions do not require going hungry or living austerely. Nor would it “unethical” to not do it.
THE WINNER for accuracy and succinctness!
Increases in the cost of rice are only partly tied to demand. Among the major factors that the markets are trying to adjust to right now, in pricing, are potential shortages due to the uncertain outcome of testing for genetic contamination of upland rice produced in the United States (Check out the website of the Arkansas Rice Growers Association, especially the press releases going back to late 2006), and due to increased shipping costs.
I call for an ethic cleansing!
It would seem to me that avoiding the purchase of rice that was imported from poor areas where rice shortages are occurring would keep more rice in those areas. Until production and importing into those areas can be increased, keeping that locally grown rice in those areas would have the short term effect of lowering those prices.
Why do you hate farmers? 
What’s wrong with farmers getting a good price for their crop? Why should they bear the burden of feeding the poor?
Exactly. We can look at countless examples of well-meaning people making huge messes because they believed that they knew what would be best but did not understand the actual consequences of their lovely plans. City projects are a particularly glaring example. So is the ‘protective’ tariff imposed by the US government at the beginning of the Depression, which did nothing but deepen the problem.
If there’s anything I wish policy-makers and influential people would learn, it’s economics. Trying to work against the natural flow of economics is like trying to defy gravity, as far as I can tell. Pretending that a good heart and some lovely plans is all you need to make the world a better place–forget all that economics nonsense–has produced an amazing amount of misery.
I see no reason to suddenly stop buying the rice I eat on a regular basis. Given that I am allergic to both corn and barley my alternatives are limited. If grains such as quinoa were more readily available I would certainly be willing to eat more of those (and I do eat quinoa, although around here it’s about twice the price, per pound, of rice)
Now, buying to hoard rice is a different matter…
Those darn allergies - I’m allergic to about half the legume family, which complicates the whole vegetarian thing, as well as allergic to tomatoes, which for some inexplicable reason people feel compelled to add to any dish that doesn’t have meat. I’m an example of why vegetarianism is not a universal solution.
Besides which, I don’t think it’s “natural” for people to forgo eating animal flesh entirely. We’re omnivores, and we and our species’ immediate ancestors have been eating meat for millions of years.
I propose “flexatariansim” - a diet that is primarily vegetarian, but with the occasional addition of meat or fish. That would mean drastically reducing the amount of animal flesh eaten in the first world and may be socially/psychologically more acceptable to many people.
If you want to help the poor of the world reduce how much meat you eat, as many food animals eat cereals that could be eaten by poor, hungry people. And, oh yeah, if want, forgo the rice for awhile but really either choice would reduce pressure on world gain stocks IF enough people did that.
I feel absolutely no ethical obligation to feed hungry people in other countries. I didn’t choose to bring those people into the world, and while I’m happy to do what I can to help them, I don’t feel an obligation to do so. There are over 6 billion people in the world, and my allegiance is first and foremost to my family and friends. After that, my sympathies radiate outward to those closest to me towards those further away. I believe that is human nature, and I’m a human being.
Not really. In either situation, the sellers and buyers will likely come to an accomodation on price that allows all the buyers in scenario 2 to get almost all of the rice they need at a slightly higher price; or allows all the sellers in scenario 1 to get rid of their stock at a slightly lower price. The scenarios you lay out do not lead to sellers simply taking all their stock off the market, nor to they mean that one buyer has to go hungry.
So what does this mean for your ethical question? That the problem in the rice market isn’t whether you eat half a cup or 7 cups of rice a week. Your rice consumption has an infinitesimally small impact on anyone, from your grocer to the starving children in Africa. And the impact gets even smaller if you consider that the rice we grow and consume in the US is probably too expensive to sell to the poorest parts of the world. OTOH, I believe the US continues to be the number one food donor in the world, a position which, unless something has changed recently, goes back several decades.
No, it would not.
The OP is based on a completely false premise - that rice stands seperate and apart from the food chain. It does not. Say everyone in the rich world stopped eating rice tomorrow. They are not going to eat nothing; they will simply increase their consumption of other foods, including other grains. So what happens? Well, one (or both) of two things:
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The demand for other grains increase, the price of those grains accordingly rise (even more than they have already), and the problem of people in poor nations being unable to afford rice is simply shifted to poor nations where corn or wheat are the staple crops. Instead of a “silent tsunami” hitting Bangladesh, it would hit Mexico and El Salvador instead. Not much better; or
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The demand for other grains increase, the price of those grains accordingly rise (even more than they have already), and rice is increasingly substituted for other, more expensive grains in industrial food production. While not a complete substitution - rice is not as versatile as corn, for instance - the result will be that demand for rice stays relatively high, and the price of rice does not drop substantially.
Wouldn’t that also have the effect of depressing the farmers and forcing them into growing something from a more profitable market?
I think, all government interferance aside, purchasing rice from a poor area with a rice shortage would be the most ethical choice. As this shortage would lower supply, when faced with an equal demand for exports the price would go up tremendously. The income brought into the community by the newly profitable farmers would boost the economy and allow a cheaper, more readily available rice to be imported. Now the area has more money and more rice.
This is what I would go for as well. My daughter is allergic to all legumes, so I’ve had to spend some time learning to cook differently. We can’t go all-vegetarian, but I would certainly like to see a general decrease in meat consumption, while still keeping it in our diets.
The so called “benefits” of vegetarianism are much overrated. It is true that such a diet would be an improvement on the average American diet, which is high in not just meats, but other saturated fats, sugars, and the like. The problem is that health is influenced by a lot of other things as well, including genetics, lifestyle, and exercise. Many of the longest living cultures eat mostly fish, and meat with Rice and Fruit. As you noted, not everyone can eat the same, nor would such a change be possible to implement against the weight of cultural history.
There wouldn’t be a shift to other grains since there’s no rice shortage here - here being the United States. People here can continue the same level of rice consumption without - just not the exotic imported rice.
No, not in the short term. Rice not sold to comsumers through exports will remain in the local areas this year. Maybe the next season - but the next season will also see more imports from the big rice exporters like the United States.
That can’t be a short-term solution though. Folks over there need to eat today.
What, making birds explode is a waste, now?
Aside from food ethics for a moment re real world food usage, how many truly poor Americans have rice as a primary staple of their diet? I would venture to say not as many as you might imagine.
It seems like almost every religion in the world agrees that ascetism is essential to living a moral life.
As for the OPs question. No, not at all. If the rice is already shipped here you are not impacting the ability of a person to eat or not. Even with Rice being expensive it’s still cheaper than many other things. Most of the rice producing countries in the world have set limits on its export which has driven up the price in America. So in the countries where rice is a staple product, they are limiting its export, so whether or not you choose to consume the rice that they choose to export is irrelevant to the price of rice in those countries. No one in America is starving or cannot afford rice because you buy it.