The Indian Food Crisis In One Simple Chart

The Business Insider ^ | 1-16-2011 | Joe Weisenthal

[blam]

The Indian Food Crisis In One Simple Chart

Joe Weisenthal
Jan. 16, 2011, 3:53 PM

There are various factors at play in the surging price of food in India (weather is a big one), but this chart from Citi's Rohini Malkani from his latest India Macro Weekly really stands out. It shows quite straightforwardly the disconnect between the growth in wealth over the years (the blue line) and the availability of foodgrains per capita.

This doesn't explain, say, the surge in onions or tomatoes, but it does factor heavily in the price of meat, eggs, etc.

For a look at some eye-popping inflation numbers, see here:

Image: Citi

[blam]

Positioning For A Food Riots Economy

[Texas Eagle]

India has food walking through its streets.

[muawiyah]

There's some seasonality in Indian food production ~ it's related to the comings and goings of the Monsoon. On the other hand, a bad winter (they had one last year) is out of the ordinary and disrupts production in Kashmir.

Although Indians and Pakistanis argue against the idea, Kashmir is far more important to both agriculturally than is generally appreciated. It's not the QUANTITY of production coming from the area that's important, but the amount of it that is surplus to local needs. That can be shipped elsewhere.

When they "lose" Kashmir for a couple of months in a crop year India ends up with serious price spikes.

Aggregate Indian statistics wouldn't reveal a Kashmiri catastrophe but you may have noticed they quit making war on each other in that region over the last year.

Just a quick look reveals that the folks in Kashmir are under the impression they have just had a general crop failure: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2010/Oct/6/kashmir-walnut-in-great-demand-in-indian-markets-31.asp

[muawiyah]

Several reasons to not eat cows in India ~ (1) The locals get excited, (2) Cows give milk, which is one of the primary ways India converts cellulose into protein, and (3) Cows give cow patties ~ and they use that stuff for everything including making sanitary floors (due to various enzymes cow poop is relatively "sterile" compared to everything else in India) to BURNING as a fuel to cook food.

Without cows your typical Indian would have to wallow in filth, eat raw food and do without dairy products.

In short, India isn't like Texas.

[blam]

Some would say that we do too

[SpaceBar]

Say what you will about their peculiar anti-beef beliefs... they’ve been around for six thousand years plus or minus, and aren’t going away anytime soon.

[JimWayne]

The socialists grabbed power in 2004. Hence the steep rise in the chart after 2004. Singh who is their Prime Minister is an Obambi worshipping socialist who carried out some orders given by IMF and so he is hailed as a genius. Remember that he is hailed as a hero by our liberal media. That should give you a clue about Singh.

[JimWayne]

I meant steep rise in the prices, not the chart.

[muawiyah]

Not going to spend much time on this, but I think the dates of the current practice are much closer to 2500 years ago than 6000 years ago.

[Little Pig]

At a guess, too, some of that rise is due to the increase in size of the middle class, which tends to use more, and more diverse, foodstuffs. This increases overall demand, while much of India’s agriculture is still stuck in the 19th century, practice-wise, and therefore has difficultly scaling to meet the demand. One possible solution is a gradual conversion to more intensive commercial-style farming, where crops are grown in large acreages, rather than a patchwork of tiny plots, but that is going to require a shift in the culture too, where more of the society moves to an urban lifestyle.

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

I’m sure China, Russia and Brazil will be happy to feed their partner.

[troy McClure]

Any good steak houses in Mumbai?

[Little Pig]

Probably not, but there are likely to be some in Goa, though how good they are I have no idea. Only Hindus don’t eat beef. All the muslims that live here do, and many tourists do, as well. Goa in particular, being a former Portuguese port and a popular tourist destination, has a very european feel to it, and a much wider range of restaurants.

[Verginius Rufus]

When I saw the headline reading “Indian Food Crisis” I figured it had to do with a shortage of pemmican.

[Noob1999]

So, instead of eaing onions - up 82%, tomatoes, up 113% and briggell (whatever that is), up 95%;

How about shifting your diet to Fruits and veges - up only 39%; maybe Eggs meat and fish, up only 20%, maybe wheat products , actually down (.5%)

You’re all going to die from higher prices; but in the long run, that’s good, as you you won’t have to suffer from “global warming”

[VanShuyten]

The Japanese have about the highest yields per acre of rice in the world even though they tend to have very small plots. This has to do with not giving high technology to the peasants that grow most of the food in India.

[James C. Bennett]

 

Serving beef at Ayodhya


24 Aug 2003, 0000 hrs IST,SWAMINOMICS

SWAMINATHAN S ANKLESARIA AIYAR

Although the BJP and Congress Party both seem keen on banning cow slaughter throughout India, it looks as though dissent from other parties has blocked the move for the time being. Some critics protest that cow worship is a strictly Hindu idea that must not be imposed on others in a secular state. I agree. 

But I go further. I hold that cow slaughter and beef eating are proven Hindu traditions of old. This has been recorded by any number of scholars of the Vedas and epics. Let me give as an example Nirad Chaudhuri's passages from The Continent of Circe. 

Vedic literature shows great love for and pride in cattle, as is to be expected of a pastoral people. Love of cows in the Vedas goes with "every possible economic use of cattle, including, of course, their slaughter for food". The Vedic spirit continues into the age when epics like the Ramayana and Mahabharata were written. 

Chaudhuri notes that a debate had already begun between those who opposed and those who defended cow slaughter. The two ideas co-existed, very much like the debate today about vegetarianism. The Mahabharata mentions, "without thinking it necessary to add any excuse, that a very hospitable king used to have 20,100 cattle slaughtered every day for his guests." On the other hand, another story tells of a king who has slaughtered a cow to entertain a sage, an act that is criticised as sinful by another sage. 

Such differences of view are a key characteristic of Hinduism. It has never been a rigid, Semitic-style religion with a chief pre-late laying down one single interpretation of holy texts. From ancient times some Hindus opposed cow slaughter, but many others regarded it as not merely permissible but obligatory to show honour to guests. 

By the time the Dharma Shastras were penned, beef consumption had "ceased or virtually ceased". Nevertheless, the play Uttara-Rama-Charitra, one of the most celebrated versions of the Ramayana written by Bhavabhuti in the 8th century AD, has the following dialogue between two hermit boys at Ayodhya, Saudahataki and Dandayana. 

S: What is the name of the guest who has arrived today with a big train of women? 

D: Stop joking. It is no less a person than the revered Vasishta himself. 

S: Is it Vasishta, eh? 

D: Who else? 

S: I thought it was a tiger or a wolf. For, as soon as he came, he crunched up our poor tawny heifer. 

D: It is written that meat should be given along with curds and honey. So every host offers a heifer, a big bull, or a goat to a learned Brahmin who comes as a guest. This is laid down in sacred law. 

Today, with the Hindutva bri-gade in full cry, such a dialogue in a modern play would probably cause a riot and be banned. 

Yet, this was uncontroversial in its time. Clearly, the notion that the cow is sacred is merely a sectional Hindu view. It is by no means traditional Hinduism or essential Hinduism. If anything, it is a recent reformist Hinduism. I have no objection to reformers, but I object vociferously when they pretend to speak for all Hindus, or for essential Hinduism. 

Some Vishwa Hindu Parishad types say that the cow gives milk which is essential for rearing all of us, so the cow is our mother, and hence deserves to be protected from slaughter. Chaudhuri remarks caustically that the "relationship is expressed not in terms of economics or animal husbandry... but as a matter of ethics, as if one was speaking of a man's relationship with his wet nurse." 

On this supposition, the buffalo is an even greater mother of Hindus than the cow, as buffaloes in north India provide more milk than cows. But nobody worships the poor buffalo. Indeed, the buffalo is ceremonially sacrificed as part of Hindu worship in parts of eastern India. 

In Vedic times, neither untouchables nor tribals were regarded as Hindus. Even when the first census was enumerated in the 19th century, dalits and tribals were not counted as Hindus. 

But such is the power of modern upper caste Hindu imperialism that it now claims as its own these two groups whom it cruelly reviled and oppressed through the ages. Dalits and tribals have always eaten beef. 

Yet, the VHP brigade (and its camp-followers in the Congress) claim unhesitatingly that Hindus do not eat beef. A ban on cow slaughter would be an imposition on hundreds of millions of dalits and tribals, no less than on non-Hindus. 

I have long opposed a ban on cow slaughter as a secular liberal. But in the light of Bhavabhuti's narrative, I also oppose the ban as a beef-eating Hindu. I am following in the footsteps of Vasishta, no less.

 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/144132.cms

  

[onona]

Actually, China is suffering too. The problem ?

WATER. China and India do not have enough fresh water to sustain crop production to feed their own.

China is now an IMPORTER of food because of this.

Canada has 20% of the worlds fresh water reserves. It is now called “Blue Gold”.

People worry about India and China buying all the yellow gold on the market. Sheeeiiit, we can have it back in months.

Reason number one why the whole ethanol $hit is effed up. You do not convert your food into fuel. Tried to explain this to family who worked for GM (flex fuel fans). Wasted words.

[James C. Bennett]

India's river interlinking project will go a long way in addressing the country's water shortage problem.

The problem with the Subcontinent isn't that there isn't enough water, but rather, most of the water is dynamic in nature, and the gigantic Himalayan rivers (snow-fed in summer, monsoon-fed in other times) flow out without much catchment. When these rivers are interlinked, the seasonal variations in the non-Himalayan rivers will reduce due to buffering, and hence, the available water for agriculture increases tremendously.

The problem right now is the various environmental groups who are against the project.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Rivers_Inter-link