http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_12782.cfm

Biofuels and Commodity Speculation, Not Asian Imports, Are Main Trigger for Food Crisis

• GM Watch (EU), June 9, 2008
  Straight to the Source
  
  

NOTE: The Bush administration has repeatedly tried to deflect criticism of the "biofuel" boom it initiated -- after heavy lobbying by biotech and agribiz interests -- as the trigger for the current food crisis, by blaming rising demand for meat in India and China as a driver of global food prices.

Many commentators in discussing the crisis have picked up on this idea of increased meat consumption with rising GDP helping to drive the global demand for grain, despite strong denials from these countries that they, rather than the "biofuel" boom, were the catalyst behind spiralling food prices.

Not just Bush's Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer but even the US Department of Agriculture's chief economist have encouraged the view that countries like India and China with their growing middle classes are a key factor in driving global demand for grain.

But Daryll E. Ray at the Agricultural Policy Analysis Center, University of Tennessee, has carefully analysed the available USDA data on China and India's grain trade and it totally demolishes these claims.

In other words, were back to the simple reality that it's the players and interests behind this crisis who are the ones who are benefitting from it.

EXTRACTS: Despite the repeated expectations that China would become a major importer of grains to feed the increased meat animal production, it has remained a net exporter of all grains since the 1996/1997 crop year... China's production of grains has exceeded its consumption for each of the last three years, while maintaining significant net export levels.

When it comes to grains, India has been a net exporter for 15 out of the last 18 years. India has also been a net meat exporter for the last 18 years.

...there is no demand for feed grains from China and India, and none from Indonesia and Brazil as well.