Actually, Indians are no strangers to accusations of fueling the food crisis. For agriculture ministers of developed countries, they have become something of scapegoats. Even the head of the Russian Ministry of Agriculture, Alexei Gordeev, believes that prices in Russian stores are rising partly due to increased consumption in Asia. But Indians had probably never heard such harsh statements before.
"In India, the middle class is rapidly becoming wealthy. That's 350 million people, exceeding our entire population. When you start getting rich, you want to eat more and better. Accordingly, demand and prices rise," Bush explained.
The angry Indians were not at a loss for words. The local press unanimously lashed out at the American president with counter-accusations. For example, the Times of India published a sarcastic article citing data on per capita food consumption in different countries. It turned out that the most voracious nation on the planet is the Americans themselves. In almost all major food categories, US residents surpass even well-off Europeans. Americans eat 23 times more chicken than Indians.
However, the Indian experts were somewhat disingenuous. They calculated how much food per person and got rather modest figures. But you could also calculate how much the entire population of India - 1.1 billion people - eats in a year. In that case, the picture would not be so clear.
Bush's rash statement could lead to an international scandal. Following journalists, many officials and politicians have already expressed their indignation. Indian Defense Minister Arackaparambil Kurian Antony called the US leader's outburst a 'cruel joke'. According to him, world food prices are rising not because Indians or Chinese have suddenly developed an increased appetite. The point is that the US is ramping up biofuel production, meaning agricultural products are increasingly going to 'feed' machines, not people.
By the way, some UN officials agree with this view. Recently, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, called for an immediate freeze on investments in biofuels, calling them irresponsible.
Anyway, it is not hard to understand the angry Indians. After all, India is home not only to the middle class but also to hundreds of millions of poor people. And they certainly cannot be driving up food prices. Moreover, for many low-income Indians, the food crisis has essentially become a death sentence. It is clear that against this backdrop, Bush's statement looks like the epitome of insensitivity.
Nevertheless, there is a grain of truth in the American president's words. The country is indeed seeing increased consumption of more expensive foodstuffs than, say, rice. However, this is a feature of all developing Asian countries. For example, in China, per capita meat consumption has increased by 150% since 1980. But President Bush somehow did not say a word about the Chinese.
Aleksey ARONOV. 