World’s giants to alter food equation

As China and India rise, diets change and demands soar

BEIJING

The roots of today’s food crisis span the globe, from sky-high oil prices in the Middle East to the diversion of crops from food to biofuel in the U.S., to drought-stricken harvests in Australia. But the crisis also has focused attention on a longer-term trend: the growing, evolving appetites of developing giants such as China and India.

“Population is increasing, and the income of the poor is increasing, but production is not increasing,” said Usha Tuteja, head of the Agricultural Economics Research Center at the University of Delhi.

Rising consumption in China and India is not the prime cause of today’s food-price shocks; both countries are largely self-sufficient in rice and wheat, staples that have fallen short in other developing countries and triggered riots.

But experts see milestones on the horizon: Sometime in the next year, for instance, China’s growing consumption and shrinking farmland are likely to turn the country into a net importer of corn, a major source of animal feed and an ingredient for many of the processed foods cropping up on the nation’s supermarket shelves.

Likewise, India is on track to become a grain importer thanks to a fast-growing middle- and upper-class minority that demands a diet diversified beyond the traditional staples of grains, legumes and vegetables. Dairy products are in particular demand in a country where at least 70 percent of the population counts itself as vegetarian, or eats meat no more than occasionally.

“You can pretty much see India is going to be an importer of grain,” said Arif Husain, a senior food policy analyst with the World Food Program in Rome. “Increased demand is one of the top reasons why prices of food are going up. And India is a large player in that sense. It’s about China and India, basically.”

Chicago Tribune