"Prosperity in countries like India is good but it triggers increased demand for better Nutrition, which in turn leads to higher food prices, United States President George W Bush has said.
At an interactive session on economy in Missouri, Bush argued that there are many factors for the present crisis, only one of which was investment on biofuels like ethanol.
"Worldwide, there is increasing demand. There turns out to be prosperity in developing world, which is good. It's going to be good for you because you'll be selling products in the countries, you know, big countries perhaps, and it's hard to sell products into countries that aren't prosperous. In other words, the more prosperous the world is, the more opportunity there is," the US President said.
"It also, however, increases demand. So, for example, just as an interesting thought for you, there are 350 million people in India who are classified as middle class. That's bigger than America. Their middle class is larger than our entire population."
"And 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," he said.
Bush also listed change in weather patterns and increase in basic costs like that of energy as factors contributing to higher food prices.
"No question that ethanol has had a part of it. But I simply do not subscribe to the notion that it is the main cost driver for your food going up," Bush said.
"Actually, the reason why food prices are high now is because, one, energy costs are high, and if you're a farmer, you're going to pass on your cost of energy in the products you sell, otherwise you'd go broke."
"And when you're paying more for your diesel, paying more for your fertiliser because it's got a lot of, you know, natural gas in it, in other words, when your basic costs are going up, so does the cost of food," Bush said
He said there are two aspects of rising food prices -- its effect on US citizens and the fact that there is a food scarcity in the world.
"We don't have a scarcity issue in America...We got a price issue. Our shelves aren't going empty, it's just costing more money," Bush said.
"There is scarcity in the world, and I happen to believe when we find people who can't find food we ought to help them find it," he said adding, "America is by far the most generous nation when it comes to helping the hungry."
"We're an unbelievably compassionate nation," he said.
"I think we ought to change our food policy in Africa and other developing countries...buying food directly from farmers as opposed to giving people food. I think we ought to be saying, 'Why don't we help you be able to deal with scarcity by encouraging your farmers to grow and be efficient growers? Otherwise, we're going to be in this cycle forever."
As i read the the article i knew there's nothing wrong(except bush could have avoided mentioning the name of country) in what Bush has said and the so called patriots and leftist's are going to make a lot of fuss about it.It's strange but 1st time in last 2 years(since i have started paying attention to world affairs) i have agreed with Bush.
Bush has said that due to increasing prosperity in countries like India people are consuming more food which is one of the reason for inflation in food prices.One reason for mentioning the name of India and China is that the prosperity in both the countries is increasing and both the countries have huge population.Both of this combined together lead to increasing demand and hence inflation.
One of the suggestion of the Bush is very good.If it can be implemented would give some relief at least to Chidambrem (with all the bashing he's getting for high inflation in India) .Bush suggested that instead of providing food grain to African people we can teach them how to grow food efficiently.That,if implemented successfully, would increase the production.
I believe Leftist would be using this statement from bush to oppose Nuclear deal. And BJP would also be not far behind in using the situation.
I think what bush has said applies to India also. In India also we have not got scarcity but the food is way to costly now. American citizens may afford that but in India people are very poor to afford food of this high price.Even middle class has also started feeling the pressure and next election is surely going to be faught on this issue only unless there is some scandal from some big politician.
so guys looking forward to your comments on the issue.You can comment on writing style also.Please if you read the article do comment your opinions.
3 comments:
hi vaibhav
i agree with the soulution proposed by bush but certainly not buying his words of india being an epicentre of food inflation..
primary reasons are
1)indian population though high is kess than 15% world wide.. so even if 1 billion people eat twice they eat now( note 1bn people eating any food almost equal to .35 bm eating nutritious food) then also food price wont increase by 100% as they stand today!!
2)india is self sufficient in food.. we dont import marginally.. so it does not trigger a world wide increase in supply in food prices..
3)we have increased the production by around 30 % in last 2 yrs.. this is more than we increased in consumption!
4)the major reason for increase in food prices is drought in Australia ( which is major supplier of wheat)consequetively 2 yr..
5)increase in crude oil prices which has increased the cost of major raw material..
rishi singhal
'future managers' you have done some real no. crunching but here i won't agree with you.If 1 billion ppl would have started eating double the food then probably it would have been a havoc and probably would have triggered a world war.And to correct you India is no longer self sufficient in food.we do import.And this time only we have imported from Australia wheats at the rate of 1600 that too of not very good quality.
I agree India is not epicentre of food inflation but bush has not suggested anything like that.He has suggested that rising nutrition level in developing coutries like india is one of the factor causing food inflation.
hiii,
As i read it,I feel that only issue is the demand-supply problem which is presented by Bush in a fancy manner. Bush wanted to grab the attention of the world so he used name of developing country INDIA bcoz whenever its name mentioned, everyone starts looking forward to any news attached with it.
As Bush said that 'the more prosperous the world is, the more opportunity there is', so what is needed is to grab these 'more opportunities' with both the hands to unleash various dark sides associated with this field.Some innovative ideas are needed to overcome such a huge food scarcity which is bound to increase with time if nothing is done to overcome it.I appreciate Bush's idea but what is needed to be done at this hour of time is quite more than that.The problem is more critical than what it seems.
I liked the way he emphasized that this problem causing inflation but inflation differs with country to country depending on diff. internal factors with some major external factors of which this is one. One can control inflation to some bearable extent through the time dependent internal factors.Its not a big problem, food scarcity is a bigger problem of which inflation is just a by-product and if it is not addressed properly many consequences are bound to happen (like world war for food...how it sounds?)So one should see the problem from top(Top view)to get the clear picture...
pls comment on it.
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