« Desi killer to be extradited :+: Maccacas get it on …in private »

Business

Condoleeza: Y’all eat too much Rice

By: Santosh :+: Under: Business
On: ⋅ May 2, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Looks like you are new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Secretary of state Condoleezza Rice has sparked controversy by blaming the current worldwide food crisis on the “improved appetites of Indians and Chinese” and “promising to have a look at it”. [1]

Meanwhile, Indian politicians and the Managing Director of Asian Development Bank, Rajat Nag, have blamed the food crisis on the increase in production of biofuels by developed nations. [2]

While that may be partially true because it is inevitable that with improving economies, food consumption has improved in India and China, that particular remark does sound weird coming from the US, a nation that is seldom equated to food conservancy. All-you-can-eat buffets anyone? Besides, any increase would be gradual, not sudden. It’s unfathomable that India and China are suddenly consuming drastically increased quantities of food, as compared to 2007 or even 2006, enough to result in a worldwide food shortage suddenly in 2008.

Which brings us to the other half of the food crisis equation, replacing food crops with crops used as source for biofuels. Nag contends farmers are abandoning staple foods and cultivate crops that can be converted to biofuels instead. But the question is whether, producing biofuel crops is enough to impact the food supply. The same question as the previous issue, did it increase enough in one year to affect the worldwide food supply?

I suspect the answer is, as usual, in between the two extremes - increase consumption of food, possible drop in production due to famine in certain parts, supply being replaced by biofuel crops, each one adding up instead of being the sole cause.

Either way, since we’re on the topic, a debate on the feasibility of biofuels would be appropriate. That biofuels are cleaner burning than fossil fuels is well known. All US Presidential candidates, Republican and Democrat, seem to think positively of them, to some extent. But are they significantly more efficient than fossils, enough for us to produce them to the point of reduction in food supply? Shouldn’t we be concentrating on more efficient and renewable sources of energy, if any exist?

Thoughts and opinions welcome, including ones on remarks made by Rice.

« Desi killer to be extradited :+: Maccacas get it on …in private »