India's food exports boom, as 200 million people go hungry

rice rupees
Originally uploaded by RoseBridger

India has more starving people than sub-Saharan Africa, with more than 200 million classified by IFPRI (International Food Policy research Institute) as hungry, even though the country is the world’s biggest rice grower with surplus grain in government warehouses. A bold policy proposal ensuring the right to food, the National Food Security Act would entitle every rural and urban family to 25 kilos of rice or wheat per month at a price of three rupees. This proposal has been widely welcomed, but previous government initiatives to reduce hunger have not met the stated targets.

In contrast, government supported programmes to increase India’s food exports are evidently a higher priority than feeding hungry people, as many of the export targets have been met. Whilst India’s other key export sectors, including textiles and jewellery, declined in 2008, plummeting 9.9 per cent in November alone, agricultural and processed food exports are booming. APEDA (Agricultural and Processed Foods Export Development Authority) reported that agricultural and processed foods exports totaled 17.5 million tones valued at Crore 31,820 in 2008. This is a growth of 46 per cent by value compared to 2007. It is worth pointing out, however, that the export volume growth of 70 per cent, from 10.9 million tones to 17.5 million tones, was much higher than the revenue growth, so the revenues are actually declining per tonne of food that is exported. APEDA is anticipating 20 per cent growth in exports for 2009, and has set a target to double India’s agricultural exports from $9 billion to $18 billion within five years.

Many countries including the US are investing heavily in India’s food processing industry. It is claimed that India will soon host the world’s biggest food park, the Himalya 13 hectare food plant near Delhi Airport will produce supposedly healthy functional foods, meal replacements, and processed bars made from nuts and berries and grains. Contract farming will source oats from Rajasthan and Gujarat, but other opportunities for Indian suppliers will be limited as US interests in the plant will be supported with nuts, almonds, and berries to be sourced from California. The US EXIM Bank has supported the plant with concessionary rates for the import of the plant and equipment. This is extending the supply chain, and increasing the environmental damage of transportation, for the construction and operation of the fancy food plant itself, as well as the actual products.

Iraq’s oil pipelines

Iraq’s health care remains severely affected by war with ill-equipped doctors, filthy hospitals and lack of basic medicines even in Baghdad’s best hospitals. In contrast, gigantic infrastructure projects for exploitation of the country’s oil and gas reserves are fast-tracked fuel. The interests in these developments, and the pipelines, map the realpolitik of the invasion and ‘reconstruction’ of Iraq, behind the political posturing, but pass with little comment in the mainstream media outside dry reports in the business pages.

As a result of the first contract to emerge from Iraq’s oilfield auction in June, the country’s oil ministry has signed an agreement with British Petroleum and CNPC, China’s largest oil and gas producer and supplier, to develop the ‘super-giant’ Rumalia oil field. The foreign firms have the lion’s share of the development, which aims to boost output to 2.85 million barrels per day. BP has a 38 per cent stake, CNPC 37 per cent and Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organisation the remaining 25 per cent. UK firm Foster Wheeler is to build the country’s biggest ever oil refinery to process over 300,000 barrels of oil per day, complete with an export pipeline.

Back in June 2008, UAE based Dana Gas and Crescent Petroleum’s LPG plants, complete with a 180km natural gas pipeline to fuel new power stations, was on fast track, and at $650 million the largest single private sector investment in Iraq since 2003. Now, Dana Gas and Crescent Oil intend to build a $60 billion Gas City in the province of Anbar, which has suffered some of the heaviest fighting since the US led invasion. Prime Minister, Nouri Maliki has identified gas from the Akkas field for possible export of 15 billion cubic metres via the planned Nabucco pipeline from Turkey to Western Europe, which aims to reduce dependence on Russian gas supplies, (see this article by Peter C Glover on the ‘international intrigue’ surrounding the Nabucco pipeline) or to Syria for power and fertiliser plants. The Province Governor, Quassim Al-Fahdawi is arguing that the first priority for use of the gas should be the local economy in Anbar, rather than export.

dates
Originally uploaded by RoseBridger

As pipelines are built for exporting fossil fuels, the Iraqi government is supporting a crackpot scheme aiming to produce biofuel from dates. It is estimated that Iraq’s production of dates could rise from about 350,000 tonnes per year to 900,000. So much for claims that new generations of biofuels will not compete with food supplies. Hunger is a pertinent issue for Iraq with the World Food Programme estimates that 930,000 Iraqis face food insecurity and an additional 6.4 million would be food insecure without the Public Distribution System.

Plastic food for your child's lunchbox

The UK has a problem of declining take up of school meals, in Scotland the proportion of pupils eating schools meals was down to 39 per cent earlier this year. One reason is the drive for healthier meals and snacks at school, the changing menus with the unfamiliar food means lots of pupils just go off and buy burgers and chips etc. In addition to competition from takeaway outlets which often sell greasy and overprocessed food, school meals have to contend with competition from heavily marketed products with the targeting parents for putting in their children’s school lunch boxes.

children's 'meal' - 3 years later
Originally uploaded by RoseBridger

I bought this product for a child’s lunch box 4 years ago in October 2005. It is from the Dairylea Lunchables range. The packaging is all about the chance to win an adventure weekend and activity toys, and has a cartoon character, a dancing cow that looks like its got BSE. Inside the actual ‘food’, encased in multiple layers of plastic, is less colourful. There is some ‘meat’ and some sort of pitta type bread, inside which lurks some processed cheese encased in its own layer of plastic, the type of cheese that doubles up as a toy as it can be torn into strips. It came with a concession to real food, a small carton of 100% orange juice, and some strawberry flavoured yoghurt. The rules on labelling mean that the use of the term ‘strawberry flavoured’, as opposed to ‘strawberry flavour’, means that it should contain at least a little bit of real strawberry and not entirely artificial flavourings.

I am keeping the product to see what will eventually happen to it. Three years later it looked much the same, I took this photo in 2008, now in October 2009 there is little discernible difference. I wonder if it will start leaking noxious gas if the plastic biodegrades before the food-like substance contents. I might open it after keeping it for 10 years, but suspect it will look much the same in 2015.

The Lunchables products have had their marketing claims challenged. In 2002, the ‘Harvest Ham’ product in the Dairylea Lunchables range won the dubious honour of the Food Commission’s Parents’ Jury Not In My Lunchbox award for the worst food product marketed for children’s lunch boxes, listing the product’s ingredients much more prominently than the small print on the packaging. One mother’s comment summed up the product as ‘Absolutely vile, overprocessed rubbish’. The manufacturer, Kraft Foods, was hauled up by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for the Lunchables range in 2007, upholding complaints that the advert breached clauses on ‘truthfulness’ and ‘substantiation’ in its claims that the product was ‘packed with good stuff’ and banned the advertisement from being used in future campaigns.

US continues airport bailouts

contrails
Originally uploaded by RoseBridger

In August, US television network CBS reported that, out of a total of $1.1 billion in federal grant money from the Obama administration, the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) had awarded $100 million to 50 airport projects that did not meet with grant criteria. Stimulus money had been spent on tiny airports serving recreational flyers and corporate jets, and small remote communities, including $15 million for Ouzinkie, with a population of just 167, to replace its runway. In addition, the FAA approved funds for four airports with a track record of mismanagement of federal funds

Yet, in September, the US Senate was considering legislation to allow an increase in the most obvious form of aviation subsidy, to raise the maximum airport passenger fees from $4.50 to £7 per passenger. According to the FAA this would raise about $1.3 billion for airport development. This is particularly eagerly awaited by Chicago O’Hare Airport, to enable expansion to 8 runways and a new terminal, a controversial development as documented by the blog The Reckless Expansion of O’Hare Airport. Many US airports are still receiving considerable stimulus funds for baggage handling and security including $14.4 for San Antonio Airport and $15.6 million for Dayton.

In addition to federal stimulus funds, some states are still proving generous. For example since 2003, Pennsylvania has spent more than $87 million in state funds to improve the state’s airports and in June Governor of Pennsylvania Edward G Rendell announced expenditure of nearly US$3 million for 16 airports to improve safety and facility maintenance.

Port Columbus Airport in Ohio, USA, has requested $1.5 million from President Obama’s economic stimulus package to replace its leaking roof with a ‘green’ roof. Green roofs already garnish the most visible buildings in several airports including Chicago’ O’Hare and Midway, with landscape planting on water-resistant membranes deflecting heat, absorbing noise and reducing water runoff. The airport is also hoping for $650,000 for five low-emission, fuel-efficient shuttle buses. Great measures for improving the airport’s environmental performance and image, but none of this tinkering with the airport site will reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from the core business of the flights.

Plums rot in the ground, but not the packaging

There has been some progress in reducing the amount of plastic encasing most of the fruit in UK supermarkets. Sainsbury’s new, lighter packaging for soft fruit including plums, cherries and strawberries has a film lid instead of the more rigid clip on lids, which is claimed to reduce the weight of the packaging by up to 87 per cent. I went to buy some a couple of weeks ago but could only find the old packaging, pictured here on the top of the photo. I popped in again a few days later and found some plums in the new packaging, see the photo below in comparison. The packaging is certainly less substantial, though nothing like an 87 per cent reduction. The label says that it is recyclable at larger Sainsbury’s stores, but I prefer to buy fruit in brown paper bags. Even soft fruit, ripe and soft, need not get squashed if you are careful with it and the paper can add some much needed fibrous matter for the compost. There is even plastic packaging for fruit and veg at farmers’ market these days, like the plums in the other photo, which I bought at Rye in Sussex.

raspberries & plums at Rye Farmers Market
Originally uploaded by RoseBridger

The bigger picture of the UK plum harvest is not as positive as the NFU (National Farmers Union) recently predicted that tonnes of UK plums would be left to rot as major supermarkets including Tesco favour imported ones. Imported plums are usually picked unripe so tend to be rock hard. The UK government has called for more domestic production of fruit and vegetables, noting dramatic reductions in growing of many types of produce including cauliflowers (another type of produce which has also often left to rot and be ploughed back into the ground when supermarkets source from overseas or the veg does not meet some superficial cosmetic appearance or uniformity standard), tomatoes, lettuce and plums. Boosting domestic production is not enough if there is not action all along the supply chain so we can actually buy it, and if the major supermarkets, which sell most of the fruit and veg consumed in the UK, do make local sourcing a higher priority.