NBC25 NEWS - From gas to mortgages, lots of American households are feeling the economic pinch, and now word of a rice shortage and high rice prices.

It's something some may take for granted, but the new rice realities are hitting ethnic restaurants and shops harder than you'd think.

In Chinese the word for rice is the same as the word for food.  In many third world countries rice is only thing people can afford to eat, and now for other cultures living here in America the price of rice is becoming a major challenge.

“We Africans like rice more than any other food, so if you ask me like 70 to 80 percent of food we eat is rice,” says Ose Osi with the Tropical Supermarket.  “There's nothing we don't eat without rice."

Ose's brother manages Tropical Supermarket, one of the few African markets in western Maryland.  He says his customers are already noticing the difference.

“Customers complain a lot.  Some say they do go to Costco and they aren't allowed to buy more than two, three bags so they come here buy two or three," he says.

Ose says those two or three bags may not even last a family of four more than a month.

In the past three weeks alone a 100 pound bag of rice has nearly doubled.  It's gone from being $39.99 to $69.99.

At the Asian Garden restaurant in Martinsburg, it's the same story.

Chuang-Hsiung Lu, who works at the restaurant, says every year is different because prices get high very fast.

But unlike some stores, the Asian Garden hasn't passed the price increase on to its customers.

For some it’s worries over a gallon of gas, but for others it's the price change of a grain of rice.

Analysts say this year's drought in Australia adds to the rice shortage problem.  The country is one of the largest exporters of rice.