[getsmart-l] India and China to blame for food crisis?? " . . .by each person in the US is over five times that of an Indian"

[John O'Gorman]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/US_eats_5_times_more_than_India_per_capita/articleshow/3008449.cms
 

US EATS 5 TIMES MORE THAN INDIA PER CAPITA 

4 May 2008, 0100 hrs IST, Subodh Varma,TNN

 

 Even as the world spins into a global food crisis, a popular theory - voiced by the likes of US President George W Bush and secretary of state Condoleezza Rice - is that the Chinese and Indians are responsible. The 'logic': due to zooming incomes, they are eating more, causing worldwide shortages. But is that true?

 

Due to their huge populations, countries like India and China may appear to consume gigantic amounts of food. But the real elephant in the room that nobody is willing to talk about is how much each person gets to eat. And the answer will shock many.

 

Total foodgrain consumption - wheat, rice, and all coarse grains like rye, barley etc - by each person in the US is over five times that of an Indian, according to figures released by the US Department of Agriculture for 2007.

 

Each Indian gets to eat about 178 kg of grain in a year, while a US citizen consumes 1,046 kg.

 

In per capita terms, US grain consumption is twice that of the European Union and thrice that of China. Grain consumption includes flour and by conversion to alcohol.

 

In fact, per capita grain consumption has increased in the US - so actually the Americans are eating more. In 2003, US per capita grain consumption was 946 kg per year which increased to 1046 kg last year.

 

By way of comparison, India's per capita grain consumption has remained static over the same period. It's not just grains. Milk consumption, in fluid form, is 78 kg per year for each person in the US, compared to 36 kg in India and 11 kg in China.

 

Vegetable oils consumption per person is 41 kg per year in US, while Indians are making do with just 11 kg per year. These are figures for liquid milk, not for cheese, butter, yogurt and milk powders which are consumed in huge proportion in the more advanced countries.

 

A significant proportion of India's population is vegetarian, and so, this is all the food that they get, apart from vegetables and pulses. But the source of carbohydrates and fats is mainly derived from food grains and oils.

 

As far as meat consumption is concerned, the US leads the world in per capita consumption by a wide margin. Beef consumption, for example, is 42.6 kg per person per year, compared to a mere 1.6 kg in India and 5.9 kg in China. In case you are thinking that perhaps Indians might be going in for chicken, think again. In the US, 45.4 kg poultry meat is consumed every year by each person, compared to just 1.9 kg in India.

 

Pork consumption is negligible in India, while it is a major item elsewhere. In the European Union, 42.6 kg pork is consumed per person every year, while in the US, 29.7 kgs are consumed. Pork is a staple for Chinese, and so over 35 kg are consumed per person per year. And, we are not talking about various other types of meat, like turkey.

All these comparisons are for powerful economies, whether of the west or the east.

 

But the story would not be complete without mentioning the plight of Africa, where foodgrain consumption in 2007 was a mere 162 kg per year for each person, or about 445 grams per day. Don't forget they are not getting any meat or milk products out there.


 

Perhaps, it is time to include the lifestyle choices of the West in the whole feverish debate on how to tackle the global food crisis.

 

These figures are collated by the US Department of Agriculture. US per capita grain consumption rose from 946 kg in 2003 to 1046 kg last year. India's per capita consumption remained static in this period.



http://mostlywater.org/how_rich_starved_world

How the rich starved the world

Mark Lynas New Statesman 17 April 2008

World cereal stocks are at an all-time low, food-aid programmes have run out
of money and millions face starvation. Yet wealthy countries persist with
plans to use grain for petrol. Plus Iain Macwhirter on how food prices are
rocketing

The irony is extraordinary. At a time when world leaders are expressing
grave concern about diminishing food stocks and a coming global food crisis,
our government brings into force measures to increase the use of biofuels -
a policy that will further increase food prices, and further worsen the
plight of the world's poor.

What biofuels do is undeniable: they take food out of the mouths of starving
people and divert them to be burned as fuel in the car engines of the
world's rich consumers. This is, in the words of the United Nations special
rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, nothing less than a "crime
against humanity". It is a crime the UK government seems determined to play
its part in abetting. The Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO),
introduced on 15 April, mandates petrol retailers to mix 2.5 per cent
biofuels into fuel sold to motorists. This will rise to 5.75 per cent by
2010, in line with European Union policy.

The message could not have been clearer if the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown,
had personally put a torch to a pyre of corn and rice in Parliament Square:
even as you take to the streets to protest your empty bellies and hungry
children, we will burn your food in our cars. The UK is not uniquely
implicated in this scandal: the EU, the United States, India, Brazil and
China all have targets to increase biofuels use. But a look at the raw data
confirms today's dire situation. According to the World Bank, global maize
production increased by 51 million tonnes between 2004 and 2007. During that
time, biofuels use in the US alone (mostly ethanol) rose by 50 million
tonnes, soaking up almost the entire global increase.

Next year, the use of US corn for ethanol is forecast to rise to 114 million
tonnes - nearly a third of the whole projected US crop. American cars now
burn enough corn to cover all the import needs of the 82 nations classed by
the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) as "low-income food-deficit
countries". There could scarcely be a better way to starve the poor.

The threat posed by biofuels affects all of us. Global grain stockpiles - on
which all of humanity depends - are now perilously depleted. Cereal stocks
are at their lowest level for 25 years, according to the FAO. The world has
consumed more grain than it has produced for seven of the past eight years,
and supplies, at roughly only 54 days of consumption, are the lowest on
record.

The president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, has already warned that
100 million people could be pushed deeper into poverty because of food price
rises caused directly by this imbalance between supply and demand. Even
consumers in rich countries are suffering. We now pay higher prices for our
food in order to subsidise the biofuels industry, thanks to measures such as
the renewable fuels directive.

This is not just a short-term price blip, but the beginnings of a major
structural change in the world food market. Population pressure - still
something of a taboo subject - is also certainly playing a part. With the
world population growing by 78 million a year, and expected to reach nine
billion by the middle of the century, there are simply many more mouths to
feed.

In addition, rapid economic growth in India and China has created tens of
millions of new middle-class consumers, all demanding western-style diets
high in meat and dairy products, thereby vastly increasing the quantity of
grain required for livestock production.

Weather plays a major role, too: the FAO's latest food situation brief
reports that, in 2007, "unfavourable climatic conditions devastated crops in
Australia and reduced harvests in many other countries, particularly in
Europe", while Southern Africa and the western United States have been hit
hard by severe drought. Rising oil prices also increase the cost of food, as
fossil fuels are important throughout the agricultural process, from tractor
diesel to fertiliser production.

Inconsistency

The most important structural change, however, is the increasing
interlinking of world energy and food markets. Once, food was just for
people. Now rising demand for transport fuel - particularly in rich
countries - is sucking supply away from the world food market and increasing
the upward pressure on prices. In the words of Josette Sheeran, executive
director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP): "We are seeing food in many
places in the world priced at fuel levels," with increasing quantities of
food "being bought by energy markets" for biofuels.

Rising oil prices feed back into the process. With food and fuel markets
intertwined, increases in the price of oil are shadowed by increases in the
price of grain. The real-world result from this structural shift may be that
hundreds of thousands of people starve in the next few years - unless
policies promoting biofuels are urgently reversed.

This is not to suggest that government targets on biofuels are driven by
some kind of malicious desire to starve the world's poor. Indeed, both Brown
and his Chancellor, Alistair Darling, have expressed concern about the food
supply crisis and the role of biofuels in causing it. But for these two
political leaders to voice their concerns while allowing the increased use
of biofuels in the UK to be pushed forward - all in the same week - is
nothing short of bizarre.

As Oxfam's Robert Bailey puts it: "This inconsistency at the highest levels
simply beggars belief." The aid agency calculates that the RTFO represents a
£500m annual subsidy from motorists and taxpayers to the biofuels industry -
more than double the amount the WFP is urgently seeking from donor countries
to try to mitigate the impact of food price rises on the world's poor.

The EU, meanwhile, persists in the erroneous belief that biofuels can help
reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The main reason for its speedy introduction
of the replacement fuel initiative was as a sop to motor manufacturers who
were lobbying hard against proposed higher fuel economy standards. With
biofuels, the EU hoped, it could cave in to the car industry while still
getting reduction in emissions.

Yet recent research suggests otherwise: two major studies published in
Science magazine in February showed clearly that once the agricultural
displacement effects of the new fuels on rainforests, peatlands and
grasslands are taken into account, emissions are many times worse than from
conventional mineral petrol. In other words, it would be better for the
climate if we just went back to fossil fuels. Biofuels are not a "necessary
but painful" way of saving the climate; they are a calamitous mistake by
almost every criterion, whether social, ethical or environmental.

Reversing the damage

The industry claims that "second-generation" biofuels, using by-products
such as corn stalks and woodchip as a feedstock, will be able to redress the
balance. But if this technological advance is achieved (and that is by no
means certain) it could usher in an even worse scenario: the annihilation of
the world's forests. If all plant life was seen as potentially convertible
for transport fuel, there would be nothing to stop what was left of the
planet's biosphere from being strip-mined to keep rich motorists on the
road. There is no simple solution. Much of the increased biofuel demand
comes from the US, where Democratic and Republican politicians alike have
talked themselves into a dead-end search for "energy security" - with
US-grown corn top of the list.

But the UK and the EU can reverse some of the damage by immediately ditching
their own biofuels policies and providing vital aid funding, principally
through the WFP, to help prevent widespread starvation in the short term.
Politicians need to realise that there is no such thing as "sustainable
biofuels", either now or in the future. As for investors, they need to
realise that pouring money into biofuels is a bad bet: subsidies will be
quickly withdrawn when policymakers face up to the reality of their ghastly
error.

In the meantime, millions face starvation and death from increasing hunger
and malnutrition. There is no time to lose.

2008: the year of food riots

Egypt Thousands of demonstrators in Mahalla el-Kobra loot shops and throw
bricks at police during protests at rising food prices and low salaries, as
part of nationwide strike

Haiti At least four people killed in the southern city of Les Cayes after
food prices rise 50 per cent in the past year

Côte d'Ivoire Police injure more than ten protesters as several hundred
demonstrators demand government action to curb food prices

Cameroon Riots last four days and result in at least 40 deaths. Unrest is
due to high fuel and food prices. Worst riots in country for 15 years

Mozambique At least four people killed and 100 injured following fuel price
rises

Senegal Violent demonstrations in Dakar as prices of rice, milk and oil
soar. Senegal imports almost all its food

Yemen Five days of rioting and a hundred arrests after the price of wheat
doubled over two months. Protesters set up roadblocks in Sana'a and Aden

...and in Mauritania, Bolivia, Indonesia, Mexico, India, Burkina Faso, and
Uzbekistan

Research by Jax Jacobsen

 
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