There is a close connection between Energy-security and Food-Security.
As the price of energy goes up, the price of commodities corespondingly
go up.
The positive news is that the demand for food cannot go beyond a
certain range. The demand is not infinite.
This is unlike certain other things like energy, fuel, metals, etc for
which the demand keeps spiraling up and up all the time.
"new.morning" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Date: Thu, 15 May 2008 01:42:02 -0000
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Indians Find U.S. at Fault in Food Cost
The New York Times
May 14, 2008
Indians Find U.S. at Fault in Food Cost
By HEATHER TIMMONS
NEW DELHI Instead of blaming India and other developing nations for
the rise in food prices, Americans should rethink their energy policy
and go on a diet.
That has been the response, basically, of a growing number of
politicians, economists and academics in this country, who are angry
at statements by top United States officials that India's rising
prosperity is to blame for food inflation.
The debate has sometimes devolved into what sounded like petty
playground taunts over who are the real gluttons devouring the world's
resources.
For instance, Pradeep S. Mehta, secretary general of the center for
international trade, economics and the environment of CUTS
International, an independent research institute based here, said that
if Americans slimmed down to the weight of middle-class Indians, "many
hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa would find food on their plates."
He added, archly, that the money spent in the United States on
liposuction to get rid of fat from excess consumption could be
funneled to feed famine victims.
Mr. Mehta's comments may sound like the macroeconomic equivalent of
"so's your old man," but they reflect genuine outrage and ballooning
criticism toward the United States in particular, over recent
remarks by President Bush.
After a news conference in Missouri on May 2, he was quoted as saying
of India's burgeoning middle class, "When you start getting wealth,
you start demanding better nutrition and better food, and so demand is
high, and that causes the price to go up."
The comments, widely reported in the developing world, followed a
statement on the subject by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that
had upset many Indians.
In response to the president's remarks, a ranking official in the
commerce ministry, Jairam Ramesh, told the Press Trust of India,
"George Bush has never been known for his knowledge of economics," and
the remarks proved again how "comprehensively wrong" he is.
The Asian Age, a newspaper based here, argued in an editorial last
week that Mr. Bush's "ignorance on most matters is widely known and
openly acknowledged by his own countrymen," and that he must not be
allowed to "get away" with an effort to "divert global attention from
the truth by passing the buck on to India."
The developing nations, and in particular China and India, are being
blamed for global problems, including the rising cost of commodities
and the increase in greenhouse gas emissions, because they are
consuming more goods and fuel than ever before. But Indians from the
prime minister's office on down frequently point out that per capita,
India uses far lower quantities of commodities and pollutes far less
than nations in the West, particularly the United States.
Explaining the food price increases, Indian politicians and academics
cite consumption in the United States; the West's diversion of arable
land into the production of ethanol and other biofuels; agricultural
subsidies and trade barriers from Washington and the European Union;
and finally the decline in the exchange rate of the dollar.
There may be some foundation to Indians' accusations of hypocrisy by
the West. The United States uses or throws away 3,770 calories a
person each day, according to data from the United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organization collected in 2001-3, compared with 2,440
calories per person in India. Americans are also the largest per
capita consumers in any major economy of the most energy-intensive
common food source, beef, the Agriculture Department says.
And the United States and Canada lead the world in oil consumption per
person, according to the Energy Information Administration, an Energy
Department agency.
When it comes to trade, Western farming subsidies undercut
agricultural production in fertile areas of Africa, India's commerce
minister, Kamal Nath, said in a telephone interview, repeating the
point that Americans waste more food than people in many other countries.
The United States is responsible "many times more" than India for the
world food crisis, said Ramesh Chand, an economist with the Indian
Council of Agricultural Research, which advises the government on farm
policy.
The Bush administration has called for a truce. President Bush is a
"great friend and admirer" of India, the United States ambassador
here, David C. Mulford, said last week. He added that "this is a time
for increased cooperation among nations to solve this problem and that
hostile political commentary is not productive."
A White House spokesman, Scott Stanzel, said, "We think it is a good
thing countries are developing, that more and more people have higher
standards of living."
Some economists argue that blaming India's growth is not only unfair,
but makes little sense.
Food prices have not been rising continually as developing nations
grew, said Ramgopal Agarwala, a former World Bank economist and senior
adviser at RIS, a research institute in New Delhi. "They were static
until 2006, then in 2007 and 2008 there was a sudden spark," he said.
But India has been growing for the last decade. This is "not last
year's phenomena," he said.
"I don't know who advised the president" on his recent comments, Mr.
Agarwala added, but his analysis is "subprime."
Mr. Mehta of the research institute conceded that his remarks on
liposuction were meant to be tongue in cheek, but that "politically
incorrect" attitudes like President Bush's and Ms. Rice's needed to be
challenged. Rather than blaming India, Mr. Mehta said, the West should
be adjusting to a changing world.
"If the developing world is going to develop, demand is going to go up
and there are going to be new political paradigms," he said.
Hari Kumar contributed reporting.
