A quick search on google on "the global food crisis" yields a surprising number of special features by leading newspapers. The feature on The Washington Post was very comprehensive. Check out this interactive on the presumed causes and effects.Meanwhile, while the Indian media has run stories on inflation (more on it on the ext post), they have not run alarmist stories on the impending crisis. As they say, this is the silly season of political news coverage as far as India goes. In 2004, all stars were strangely aligned. Both India and US had general elections. Secular media in both countries wanted the incumbent out. It created a unique synergy, a never before seen blitzkrieg of coverage which spelled doom for the world and great misery for the hapless public.
Most unfortunately, this time around the US and Indian elections are out of sync. So while the US (and global) media is showing scary statistics, the Indian media's response has been muted. Hence no special shows on global food crisis.
CNN-IBN ran a few pretty weird shows on inflation. One of them exhorted the rich people in India to consume less so the grain prices come down. Most surprisingly the montage of Indian companies shown at the beginning of the program had the Infosys headquarters as the very first image, with a stern voice over indicting rich people in India for consuming too much. Narayana Murthy is not the richest man in India by miles, but for obvious reasons draws the most flak. Perhaps if his family consumes less sambar, prices of pulses will come down.
5 comments:
I thought the rich are into dieting, slimming and all that stuff..
anyway, in our country, about 20% of our crops are lost to rats alone !! (As per a Doordarshan TV show I saw long ago). Maybe the figures might have gone down now, but then apart from rats, there are other pests, bad storage conditions.... how much do we lose due to these?
In fact, I have stopped eating much since I started working after studies (not much physical activity, and hence not much need for food). Same goes with many other friends.
The problem is not people eating more, the problem seems to be the population!! Population increases exponentially, but not food production.
But then we cannot have population control in India, due to "political reasons" and of course, minorities wishing to become majorities :-)
would you expect c(ongress)IBN to show an image of 'King chemicals' with that voice-over urging less consumption? Not done. everybody knows OBCs need to consume more.
btw, how do you think the media is treating the deaths of infants after vaccinations? There are still some deaths being reported from TN. But then the OBC union health minister's job needs to be secure, what price a few innocent lives and the contracted tenure of a upper caste medical director?
While I do not have a phenominal understanding of the global food situation, the crisis seems to have triggered due to bad crops in Asia last year. Pictures from NASA Earth Observatory show record rice & cotton (I know this isn't food) crop this year in India, so could the crisis be temporary?
Ho about asking the fatcats who inhabit Lutyens's Delhi to move out into more humble accomodation like Narendra Modi?
Shadows,
We lose about 40% of all food produced. Don't expect it to change soon.
DosaBandit,
Grain prices are increasing mostly because of India, China and Vietnam's stupid policies. By banning exports and refusing to increase minimum support prices, they have forced the farmers and middlemen to hoard. Actually they have created conditions where there is an arbitrage opportunity.
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