In March and for months before, the world awoke to a rice crisis. The Associated Press brought the news to us in this article, explaining how many Asian governments are banning the exportation of rice, to help stabilize the costs in their own regions. It didn’t take long for this disaster to hit, albeit to a much less extent, here in the U.S. This past Thursday, the Associated Press revealed that Sam’s Club and Costco Wholesale Corp. have limited the amount of rice each customer may purchase per visit in this article.

In class we learned about how the act of one or a few individuals, noticed by their neighbors, can influence others’ decisions and create a cascade of similar choices. It seems that this phenomenon may have occurred in several aspects related to this topic. First, the prime minister of Cambodia ordered a ban on rice exports. Next, the President of the Philippines ordered over a million tons of rice from Vietnam. Other countries followed suit, instituting rice reforms of their own, further compounding the issue.

That brings us to the issue here in the United States. Our economy can better tolerate the higher rice prices, so the everyday citizen may not even be aware of the global crisis. Retailers and restaurants, however, are another story. The main hypothesis that lead to Sam’s and Costco’s decision to limit rice purchases, relies on small companies, not any supply shortages. “USA Rice Federation spokesman David Coia said there is no rice shortage in the United States. ‘It’s possible that small restaurants and bodega-type neighborhood stores may be purchasing rice in larger quantities than they do typically to avoid higher prices.’” So despite the fact that no supply shortage exists in the U.S., suppliers have seen an increase in demand and have responded with this restriction.

Where did the demand originate? Likely from these small restaurants who anticipate higher prices in the near future. We learned that given the right amount of initial adopters, a tipping point can be reached, all threshold values surpassed, and a cascade ensues. Cascades are fragile. It appears that the tipping point has been crossed, and these stores may have simply followed a cascade. Maybe that’s why Apollo’s Chinese in collegetown relatively recently hiked their $4.50 two-items w/rice meal up to $4.99?