The price of rice is increasing in China

Food staples such as rice have risen lately due to several factors, such as flooding, cold weather and urbanisation are depleting food supply, there is also the
offer diminishing versus a demand always increasing. Here is how an urban chinese family deals with the soaring prices of rice...

THE WANG JUN FAMILY, BEIJING, CHINA

Wan Jung lives with his wife and his wife's mother

Wang Jun: I live with my wife and my wife's mother in Beijing. We own a small cleaning place. Food prices have risen in the past few years, especially last year.
We spend a lot on food. Renting the place where we live costs more than $100 and we can't really save much money for our daughter's tuition fees back at our hometown.
We've been tightening our belts to save more money.

Over the past year, the cost of food has risen so quickly that we had to stop eating meat every day to save money. The pork price just soared madly, and it's now three or four times more expensive than two years ago.

We only eat chopped-up pork two or three times a week, but with vegetables. Eating meat on its own seems too extravagant for us.

LOCAL FOOD PRICES

The Wang Jun family spends 16% of its income on food.
1 kilo of rice: $0.62 (31p)
1 litre cooking oil: $2.50 (£1.25)
1 kilo of pork: $4.22 (£2.10)
1 kilo of lettuce: $0.99 (49p)

Also, to save money, my wife wakes up around at around 6am and cycles for one hour to go to an early market that sells cheap vegetables.
Even though it is less than one yuan cheaper than a nearby market, we can save a lot by doing it every day.

We've been using less cooking oil as well, because the price of oil has trebled over the past few months. Just now, the supermarket was taking down old price tags as the price went up again. It's mad. So we've been eating more vegetables like tomatoes, potatoes, cabbages - locally grown food is just cheaper.
The price rises are frustrating for us, but because I used to be a farmer I also see the farmers' point of view.

If the government controls food prices too much, farmers can't earn any money and life can be very difficult.