Washington, May 21 (IANS) India's angry reaction to President George
Bush's suggestion that its middle class was pushing food prices by
demanding better food is bringing home the realization that the blame
lies at America's own door.
"We Americans are gluttons for energy, as well as for food," noted
Dallas Morning News in an editorial Tuesday drawing attention not only
to the Americans' huge intake, but also to enormous amounts of food that
they waste.
"Given that two-thirds of Americans are overweight, we should have the
good manners not to complain about high food prices with our mouths
full," it said in an edit piece Monday titled "US a food wasteland".
"Growing appetites from the rising middle classes of China and India are
helping drive demand past what the world food market can supply," said
the daily noting, "This wasn't such a problem for American consumers
when the Chinese and Indians were too poor to eat like us."
"But that's changing. Frankly, the Indians are tired of hearing us
complain," it added.
"Irritated economists and officials in India can point to United Nations
data showing that the average American consumes or discards 3,770
calories of food energy per day - roughly 50 percent more than the
average Indian," the Dallas Morning News noted.
US Department of Agriculture figures show that the average American eats
57 times more corn annually than does the average Indian and about seven
times more corn than the average Chinese.
Americans eat eight times more beef than the Chinese do and six times
more chicken. US beef and chicken consumption exceeds India's by
multiples of several hundred.
In fact, Americans throw away a staggering amount of food - 27 percent
of what's edible, according to government data cited by The New York
Times.
In a piece titled "One Country's Table Scraps, Another Country's Meal",
the Times cited an Indian official as noting that that not only do
Americans eat too much but they also throw out too much food.
"If they slimmed down to the weight of middle-class Indians "many people
in sub-Saharan Africa would find food on their plate," he said.
But Time magazine suggested that "Bush's wording was perhaps simplistic,
a point US diplomats have been at pains to rectify as they try to dampen
the food fight between the two countries. But Bush was not completely
wrong, either."
In a piece titled "India to America: Eat Less, Fatties" on the outrage
expressed by "India's most nationalistic politicians, newspapers and
television pundits", the American newsweekly said: "There's no doubt
that China and India's growing middle classes are consuming more and
different types of food.
"As people get richer they tend to eat more meat and dairy products, for
instance, and that's exactly what's happening in China and India. That
growing demand will naturally push up prices over the long term," it
said.
"But it's debatable whether the huge price run-ups in the past few
months for staples such as rice and corn can be pinned on China and
India alone," Time said.
Short-term factors-such as the huge boom in biofuel production and the
skyrocketing cost of fuel that has pushed up fertilizer and transport
prices - play a big part too, it said. "But to pretend that tens of
millions of Chinese and Indians who are joining the middle class every
year have no impact on demand for food is silly."
The key is not demand, but supply, Time said noting: "Agricultural
production in places such as India has not kept up with the incredible
social changes under way in the country's cities and towns."
India is suffering from "a very serious neglect of agriculture in terms
of investment," it said citing Dan Toole, the South Asia regional
director for the United Nations Children's Fund.
Suggesting India "is perhaps the solution but is also part of the
problem," Toole said what's needed is massive investment in farming,
more assistance for the hundreds of millions of Indians who are
malnourished, and for the government "to somehow get beyond the policy
and into the implementation."
Meanwhile, America's food processors too have joined the fight against
ethanol, another Bush pet project aimed at weaning Americans away from
their "oil addiction".
The processors complain that rocketing demand for ethanol, a grain-based
fuel additive, is forcing up the cost of food. Ethanol makers say such
claims are exaggerated.
The Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents companies such
as Coca-Cola, General Mills and Procter & Gamble, is "preparing letters
to a number of Governors" to show that food price inflation is being
fuelled by growing ethanol demand, the Washington Post reported.
Click
here to send Gifts to India
|