Bush says the price of food has increased because people in India as well as in China are eating more. What does he intend to say, that it was better when people in these countries were impoverished and stayed malnourished? Some studies have claimed that 73% of food in the United States is disposed of, uneaten (read this). People simply consign the food on their plates to the garbage can as soon as they don’t feel like consuming it; and they take big portions even when they don’t intend to eat the whole thing. So much for causing food shortage by eating more by people in other countries.
I’m not denying that food habits in India have changed. In fact even at our house we eat a lot better than what we used to eat when we were kids. We were not poor back then but there was not much awareness regarding food-eating options and to be frank, not much was available. Due to overall progress and globalization people have access to a variety of comestibles, irrespective of the escalating costs.
But you cannot blame people for eating better, especially when people in your own country moronically go on wasting food and fuel despite the galling shortage. The problem is not the shortage, it is a litany of bad decisions. Currently, almost 30% of corn produce in the USA is converted into ethanol and similar trends are being observed in the EU where different governments are setting up targets for producing more and more biofuel.
In India more food rots in the godowns than is eaten. Shady marketers horde food so that they can sell it at the times of scarcity and in the process lots of it is destroyed, and the government doesn’t do much about this, and this must be happening in many countries. In fact numerous countries are experiencing food riots already.
