Bush blames India for rise in food prices, receives flak

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"There are 350 million people in India who are classified as middle class. That's bigger than America. Their middle class is larger than our entire population," said Bush last week. "And when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food. And so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up."

The US President was endorsing US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's earlier comments that the world food crisis was a result of "improvement in the diets of people in India and China."

Rice had observed that this was forcing the two countries to keep the food supply within the limits of their geographical boundaries leading to a food grain shortage worldwide.

Stung, the Congress-led Indian government, did not lose time to point out to the US president that his analysis was "completely erroneous" as India is not a food importer but a food exporter.

"George Bush has never been known for his knowledge of economics. And he has just proved once again how comprehensively wrong he is," Jairam Ramesh, Minister of State for Commerce, said, wondering whether President Bush wanted Indians to remain malnourished.

Data collected by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nation show that the consumption of cereals (wheat, rice, maize, corn and so on) is growing far more rapidly in the US than in India or China.

FAO noted that though India accounts for a sixth of the world population, the country is estimated to have consumed 9.37 percent of world cereals in 2007-08, almost the same as 9.36 percent in the previous year.

The share of the US, the FAO report said, has gone up from 13.46 percent in 2006-07 to 14.74 percent. China's share, it is worth noting, is projected to have come down from 18.53 percent to 18.48 percent.

The FAO data also show that the usage of corn in the US to make biofuel increased two-and-a-half times between 2000 and 2006.

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