Rice tanked for a fifth straight day, heading for its steepest weekly decline in nearly four years, as the prospect of exports from Pakistan and Japan assuaged concerns that a global food shortage is deepening. Well, that sure was anticlimactic. After all the international screaming and chest-thumping…this is it?

Pakistan, the fifth-biggest exporter, will permit shipments of 1 million metric tons as local needs have been met, Mohammad Azhar Akhtar, chairman of the Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan, said yesterday.

The staple for half the world reached a record last month as some exporters including Vietnam and India cut sales to guarantee local supplies, stoking concern hunger and unrest may spread. The price fell 14 percent this week, the biggest weekly drop since July 2, 2004, according to Bloomberg data.

"Rice prices appear to have already peaked," Kazuhiko Saito, a strategist at Interes Capital Management Co. in Tokyo, said by phone today. "Some exporters may resume their sales before producers in Asia harvest new crops."

Rough rice for July delivery fell as much as $1.02, or 5 percent, to $19.32 per 100 pounds, the lowest since April 2, on the Chicago Board of Trade. The contract, which touched a record $25.07 on April 24, traded at $19.70 at 2:44 p.m. Singapore time.

"The wheels are in motion for lower food prices," John Reeve, associate director for agricultural commodities at UBS AG, said today in an interview on Bloomberg Television. Farm output costs were below selling prices and harvests were due, he said.

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