The showering of rice on a newly wedded couple has always been symbolic of wishing prosperity and good luck. To this day, rice remains a token of a life of “plenty.”

Unfortunately, a dramatic price increase in rice, wheat and corn has devastated much of the developing world, contributing to massive starvation. Thus, we might wish to consider abandoning this ancient tradition of rice throwing to show solidarity with the plight of billions throughout the globe.

Over the past few years, we have seen an explosion in commodity prices. Citizens of the developed world have been hurt by a sharp run-up in the price of oil, natural gas, coal, copper, and platinum. On the flip side, price increases in such staples as wheat and rice have devastated the economies in the developing world. To protect their local citizenry, major rice producers such as Thailand and Vietnam have sharply curbed exports.

The situation is even more dire in parts of Africa, India, Pakistan and Haiti. Sadly, Haitians have even resorted to eating “mud cakes” to quash their hunger pains. Politicians in the developing world have begun denouncing the employment of wheat and corn to make ethanol, calling it a cruel hoax on the poor.

From time immemorial, the threat of starvation has haunted the world.

* In the Bible, Joseph rose from being a criminal to the senior adviser to the pharaoh because he correctly predicted that Egypt would have seven years of bounty followed by seven years of famine.

* From 1845 to 1850 about 12 percent of the Irish population died of starvation during the potato famine.

* In the 1930s possibly tens of millions died of starvation in Ukraine because of Stalin’s failed agricultural policies.

* In the 1950s and 1960s, possibly 40 million Chinese died because of Mao Zedong’s failed Great Leap Forward policies.

Succinctly stated, much of the world lives on the brink of starvation.

In 1798, Thomas Malthus published his “Essay on Population,” which warned that population growth always exceeds the food supply.

Malthus wrote that “population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio.” Wars and famine were necessary in order to decrease the world’s population, he posited.

We should remember that until the Industrial Age, most of the world’s population worked in agriculture in order to ensure enough sustenance. Even today, some 60 percent of the population of India are farmers.

In one of the great political orations in American history, William Jennings Bryan captured the 1896 Democratic nomination with his electrifying Cross of Gold speech. In this speech he stressed the importance of farming:

“You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard; we reply that the great cities rest upon our broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.”

Now, demographic experts express concerns about the current world population, some 6 billion. The outlook for continued rapid increases in population exacerbates the problem.

The world is witnessing dramatically different growth rates. Population growth in many European countries such as Germany, Russia and Italy has slowed precipitously. On the other side of the globe, Japan has a stagnant, aging population. At the same time, we are witnessing dramatic population growth in much of Latin America, Africa and Asia.

Unfortunately, much of the population growth takes place in developing nations that don’t have the resources to properly feed, house or clothe their inhabitants.

And the emigration rate from developing countries has changed the demographic profile in the urban areas of France, Germany, the Netherlands, Great Britain and Denmark, which all now have relatively high populations of immigrants from the Third World. Some experts predict these emigration patterns will continue if the worldwide food supply situation continues to deteriorate.

In conclusion, we certainly want to keep all the wonderful symbols such as rice throwing in the wedding pageant. Unfortunately, the continued throwing of this commodity seems politically insensitive. I remain haunted by Haitian “mud cakes.”

The failure of Congress to handle the energy crisis for the past 30 years undermines my confidence that Washington can fix the problem.

Originally published in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune