Shipping rice to the stars

[Hellraiser]

I thought there were quite a few places that couldn't feed themselves,  BUT,  that most of them were smaller populations.

Like small mining colonies where great mineral resources are at for heavy manufacturing but have crap for agriculture.

After all, It doesn't make much sense to heavily populate a world that can't even feed itself.

But supporting 10K workers in bubble dome cities that build jumpships from asteroid mines, that makes some sense.

[Iracundus]

Something else to consider -
Cargo: 36 693.25 tons
Value per ton: 61.81 C-Bills

Total Revenue: 2 268 009.7825 C-Bills

Less expenses as outlined in original post of 2 267 878 C-Bills leaves....

131.7825 C-Bills


Let's hope for this trader's sake that the cost per ton for rice is actually a lot higher.

The 61.81 C-bill per ton of rice is the minimum necessary to cover cost.  Converting to USD and adjusting for inflation shows this is actually much less than the RL market price for rice.  This means anything like current market price for rice would yield a profit for the trader, meaning at least for this situation that bulk shipping of a food staple like rice would still be economically viable in the setting.

[Colt Ward]

Well, one other thing to point out . . . besides bulk shipping food like you mentioned . . . there is a good chance the 'spice' trade would pick up again.  Sure rice is great . . . but generally you will want something to give it some flavor so traders would probably also ship kegs of curry, soy sauce, ginger, cinnamon, etc which aside from soy sauce (can it be de-hydrated? less weight/volume) will take up less space but will have a higher value per milligram than the rice.

So rice would be high volume but low margin . . . and the spices/seasonings would flip that, low volume buy high margin.

[Iracundus]

Kaifeng is canonically critical to the food security of Sarna so pure profit margin would not be the only consideration..  In the End of Necromo, there is a brief mention in the beginning of a ship identifying itself as a state trader.  This seems to imply it is subsidized or perhaps part of a state owned enterprise.  I would imagine the Confederation would mandate shipment of rice over other non-essential goods from Kaifeng to Sarna, or have it written into agreements with either individual ship owners or shipping corporations that they have to ensure the supply of rice in return for considerations elsewhere. 

[Dayton3]

You'd think that in a thousand years nearly and access to many other eco systems that humanity would've developed a less water intensive grain.