Why George W Bush and Condoleezza Rice are wrong? - by Narasimhan
We had an interesting debate raging in India over the remarks made by Bush and Rice holding India and China responsible for the increases in food prices. Their statements seem to be deliberate attempt to divert attention from declining food shipments to the needy in the hours of crisis as well as to justify the diversion of agricultural land to bio fuel to reduce the impact of crude oil price on US economy. It is true that India and China had good years of economic growth needing more factors of production especially the crude oil and minerals which were imported. But both countries do not import food in a big way. Especially external trade in food and food products from India is not even 1% of its GDP. Bush has also referred to the larger Indian middle class and its propensity to consume more and more food as the reason for the increase in food prices. The statistics released by US Department of agriculture reveals a different story as the table below will reveal the per capita consumption of various food items in kilogram per year.
| Item | US | China | India |
| | | | |
| Grains | 1046 | 285 | 178 |
| Milk | 78 | 11 | 36 |
| Vegetable Oil | 41 | | 11 |
| Beef | 42.6 | 5.9 | 1.6 |
| Chicken | 45.4 | | 1.9 |
| Pork | 29.7 | 35 | |
It is easy to recognize from the table how even a small shift in food habits in US can feed large number of hungry millions all over the world as the average US citizen consumes 5 times more grain, 2 times more milk, 4 times more vegetable oil, more than 20 times beef or chicken than the average Indian. Presence of large vegetarian in India and self sufficiency in food has helped India to manage the food prices far better than the developed countries. A deeper analysis will also reveal that farming community in India has also not been allowed get away with super profits in times of world food crisis. This situation is hardly surprising. The negotiating pattern of developed countries led by US in WTO talks on carbon emission is in line with the current logic it is adopting on food prices. It is the developing countries who are asked to postpone their date of prosperity and not accelerate giving the technology oriented developed countries sufficient time to readjust and emerge on top of the economic supremacy. In order to understand the full ramification please read http://www.fingad.com/review/crude_prices_bio_fuel_sub_prime_and_food_crisis and remarks byV T Castle reproduced here:
“Great article - and you're right, I think we've seen 1 or 2 articles about the rising cost of food, but never one that mentions the social ramifications that accompanies rising food costs. What concerns me about this situation, from an American point of view, is if this is a tactic to regain some form of economic control over the world by increasing the cost of food. No one would really care about the cost of oil if it costs 1000% more for grain or rice. Very troubling indeed. Do you have any idea how much of the world's food is grown in the US? I ask b/c if bioethanol cuts into say, 25% of this total, how much would it drive up demand.”
In short we can conclude that Bush and Rice had messages to their local interests. They perhaps are planning to spike the demand from developing countries to cut the subsidies to the bio fuel farming. Well in this world there are not many statesmen and this debate will bring many politicians who can argue for the cause of earth we all share.