The abruptness of the decision and the scale of the tariffs on exporting rice is certainly a challenge for the world especially given the ongoing difficulties with exporting grain from Ukraine,...
The abruptness of the decision and the scale of the tariffs on exporting rice is certainly a challenge for the world especially given the ongoing difficulties with exporting grain from Ukraine, but at the same time, with domestic food costs rising 25% this year I can see why India would want to bolster domestic food security. The BBC is certainly framing it as a global problem for the poor and hungry everywhere, but didn't seem to worry much about India's poor and hungry. Is it bad for the world? Certainly. Is it a defensible decision in defending Indian domestic interests? Maybe yes?
India does get a weird treatment in international media where it's often talked about like Indians are obligated to self-sacrifice their national interests in service of international norms that...
India does get a weird treatment in international media where it's often talked about like Indians are obligated to self-sacrifice their national interests in service of international norms that the international community absolutely does not reciprocate.
https://www.wristband.com/content/which-countries-provide-receive-most-foreign-aid/ yet https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/world/heres-what-to-know-about-indias-ties-with-russia Sounds like the rest...
The country that received the most foreign aid is India, which got more than $4.2 billion in aid from the DAC members in 2017. Turkey was a close second with $4.1 billion in aid received.
Russian oil now accounts for nearly 20 percent of India's annual crude imports, up from just 2 percent in 2021, according to Indian media reports.
Sounds like the rest of the world is sacrificing for India, while India pours money into Russia which they in turn use to murder Ukrainian civilians in an illegal war.
This isn't so cut and dry. Let me start off by saying that the war Russia is waging is deplorable, and Putin deserves the deepest, darkest corner of hell. India and erst-while USSR (now Russia)...
Exemplary
This isn't so cut and dry.
Let me start off by saying that the war Russia is waging is deplorable, and Putin deserves the deepest, darkest corner of hell.
India and erst-while USSR (now Russia) have been allies for the longest terms. Read up on the Liberation War of Bangladesh and how US chose to side with Pakistan which continued to assault freedoms of Bangladesh (then east-Pakistan), and UK, France abstained from taking action. Only USSR supported India on the global stage. Then, as India developed nuclear weaponry, Russia supported them in various ways, while US and allies continued to oppose and plan sanctions against India. All while staying mum when Pakistan, one of it's most hostile neighbours also developed nuclear weapons. This should set a backdrop of how USSR/Russia has supported India, when US and allies have either turned their back on India, or actively been hostile on various fronts.
At the same time, US and allies have not suffered even a fraction of the infractions that have been vetted on Russia for doing exactly the same in multiple parts of the world, for the longest of time. So there is also a very strong sense of pot calling the kettle black.
Has what Russia done to Ukraine despicable? Yes.
Have US and allies done worse and not been put under any sort of sanctions? Yes.
If all European countries get to choose the wars they are ok with, so does India.
could you extrapolate on what you mean when you say the US has done worse (presumably in comparison to Russia)? Russia has done some vile things throughout history.
could you extrapolate on what you mean when you say the US has done worse (presumably in comparison to Russia)? Russia has done some vile things throughout history.
I would assume they're talking about Iraq and Vietnam. I'm not sure I'd fully consider those worse given Contemporary values and that South Vietnam requested military aid (even if much of the...
I would assume they're talking about Iraq and Vietnam. I'm not sure I'd fully consider those worse given
Contemporary values and that South Vietnam requested military aid (even if much of the justification came through the Gulf of Tonkin incident)
The fact that the US removed a criminal against humanity in Iraq and implemented a democratic process that was--to my knowledge--as legitimate as they could
The fact that Russia has very possibly killed more Ukrainian civilians than the US killed Iraqi civilians (although more civilians overall were probably directly killed in Iraq--for the time being--and more Iraqis were certainly killed indirectly) and Putin and other Russian leaders have actually expressed a desire to rid the world of the Ukrainian identity and they have taken actions toward actual cultural genocide.
Not saying what the US did was really right or justifiable, just that the current war seems further from justification. Obviously both this one and the Iraq War were "justified" using lies.
I don't see how anyone can think those are worse then the atrocities that Russia has committed. I wish they would have replied with their thoughts but oh well.
I don't see how anyone can think those are worse then the atrocities that Russia has committed. I wish they would have replied with their thoughts but oh well.
Hey, glad to see you here! We used to interact a decent amount several years ago on reddit (I used a different username), but it's always fun to recognize people!
Hey, glad to see you here! We used to interact a decent amount several years ago on reddit (I used a different username), but it's always fun to recognize people!
As you mentioned, the Vietnam war is surely a key highlight in the examples. Regardless of the justification, there were multiple attacks carried out against civilian settlements with Napalm. The...
As you mentioned, the Vietnam war is surely a key highlight in the examples. Regardless of the justification, there were multiple attacks carried out against civilian settlements with Napalm. The effects of this were enough to term it a war crime after the attacks.
Iran and Afghanistan have had multiple civilian communities uprooted because of US's initial intervention in the local politics and then down the lane the wars that have been fought in those areas.
The Banana Wars that US waged in the Latin American region, which created instability in the nations of the area for years to come, creation of drug cartels being one of the chief issues. Sure, this wasn't an all out war, but based on the impact of the actions, I'm not sure if it should be easily removed.
Further, if we're talking about punishing wars than UAEs war against Yemen should also invite similar sanctions. We all know how unlikely that is given the close relations between UAE and US. So again, there seems to be an inconsistent guideline for measuring these atrocities.
Additionally, we should also keep in mind that by and large, US has a better PR machine working to maintain it's image as a global watchdog, which more often than not paint them as saviours.
Personally, I can never support a war as such. At the end, all it leads to is young people dying on the front lines. However, comparing the atrocities of the wars raged by US and Russia is such a thin line, that arguing about the semantics of it, rather than the actual impact to the cultures is a losing exercise.
I was travelling and hence the late response @iBleedorange (how do we tag a user in a response again? :D)
They could be talking about US sponsored coups, like the overthrow of Mosaddegh in Iran in favor of the Shah. Or conquests like Hawaii or the Philippines. Or internventions in South and Central...
I presume they were speaking of multiple direct wars initiated by the US in Afghanistan and Iraq, and involvement in Vietnam, Iraq-Iran, etc. And then there's also CIA-initiated conflicts in South...
I presume they were speaking of multiple direct wars initiated by the US in Afghanistan and Iraq, and involvement in Vietnam, Iraq-Iran, etc. And then there's also CIA-initiated conflicts in South America.
https://www.indiatoday.in/diu/story/non-basmati-white-rice-ban-by-union-government-export-diu-story-2413209-2023-07-28 Read the local coverage here. Production is low and high local demand.
A good example would be the public outcry and condemnation when India tested nuclear weapons, but the comparative non-event it was treated as when Pakistan did the same thing. Indian observers...
A good example would be the public outcry and condemnation when India tested nuclear weapons, but the comparative non-event it was treated as when Pakistan did the same thing.
Indian observers find Western criticisms of Indian communal politics deeply hypocritical while nakedly authoritarian governments that commit unambiguous human rights violations are retained as staunch allies (such as Pakistan or Saudi Arabia or even Israel). The general impression is that the West does not respect India as a peer with whom to negotiate or deal, but as an unruly child in need of disciplining. Indias refusal to engage with great power politics and remain unaligned has never worked for the strongly “us or them” approach that American foreign policy adopted throughout the Cold War, and that basic dynamic has never gone away.
India has solidified ties with Moscow. Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with Vladimir Putin in September and called their countries' friendship "unbreakable." He did tell the Russian president it's "not a time for war." But a year on, Modi still refuses to assign blame for the violence, and has voiced more concern over the spike in global food and fuel prices triggered by the war.
Meanwhile, as Europe eschews Russian oil and gas, India has doubled down on buying Russian oil at bargain prices — much to Washington's chagrin. And India continues to place orders for Russian-made weapons.
Rebuffing calls by Western leaders to not buy Russian crude, India increased its purchases of oil, coal and fertilizers from Moscow. From less than one percent before the war began, Russia became a top supplier to New Delhi of oil by the year’s end. Indian officials said that buying oil from Moscow was to the country’s advantage and it would continue to do so.
The article above starts with a photo of a Canadian grocery store where rice is seeing a markup bc of the Indian tariffs. Canada takes in an insane number of Indian migrants. Like, I'm...
The article above starts with a photo of a Canadian grocery store where rice is seeing a markup bc of the Indian tariffs.
Canada takes in an insane number of Indian migrants. Like, I'm pro-immigration and I'm pro-Indian migrants, but it's crazy how much of our immigration program they make up and how much is built around catering to them. This goes beyond just bringing people to Canada -- it helps people in India too, bc a lot of migrants build lives here and contribute but also extract significant amounts of money from the Canadian economy to send back to India.
Ironically, the Indians back home having trouble affording food are making it (even) more expensive for the Indians living in Canada.
I know not every country has this kind of relationship with India but Canada does... something like 7% of our population identify as South Asian and the bulk of that is Indians, and South Asian populations are especially prominent in certain parts of the country like here in Ontario.
I don't blame them for the situation of course... it's a tough one. Made tougher by India's support of Russia in the Ukraine war which makes international relations more difficult (I'm no expert but I imagine that decision has to be purely to appease China... because every person of Indian descent I know in Canada is strongly against it).
India does not support Russia’s invasion. They’ve abstained on every vote pertaining to it and backchannel requested the Russians to back off. They’re just unwilling to disengage from Russia for...
India does not support Russia’s invasion. They’ve abstained on every vote pertaining to it and backchannel requested the Russians to back off. They’re just unwilling to disengage from Russia for the simple fact that most of their military technology comes from there and there are no alternative sources of similar technology that aren’t either hostile foreign powers (China), completely faithless allies whose deals come with strings attached (the United States), or incapable of producing at the scale required (Israel, Germany, etc.)
Russia is also India’s only counterbalance against China in the UN Security Council, because they deploy their veto reliably in India’s interests in ways the US never does.
Indians are predominantly against the war, but as a foreign policy they’re also not willing to stick their necks out in support of an ostensible “rules based international order” that functionally does not exist whenever their interests are concerned. This is demonstrated consistently any time China violates Indian border claims in Aksai Chin or Arunachal Pradesh, or any time cross-border terrorism financed by America’s chief ally in the region starts to pick up. This isn’t just a BJP thing, this is a cross-party consensus within the Indian foreign policy sphere.
I agree that they could have definitely explored this a little more fairly, but to be fair to the BBC they seem to reporting on domestic concerns rather than deliberately manifesting a narrative:
The BBC is certainly framing it as a global problem for the poor and hungry everywhere, but didn't seem to worry much about India's poor and hungry. Is it bad for the world? Certainly. Is it a defensible decision in defending Indian domestic interests? Maybe yes?
I agree that they could have definitely explored this a little more fairly, but to be fair to the BBC they seem to reporting on domestic concerns rather than deliberately manifesting a narrative:
But experts say India's export ban poses greater risks. It would "surely cause a spike in global prices of white rice" and "adversely affect food security of many African nations", warn Ashok Gulati and Raya Das of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (Icrier), a Delhi-based think tank. They believe that in order for India to become a "responsible leader of the Global South in G-20", it should avoid such abrupt bans. "But the bigger damage," they say, "will be that India will be seen as a very unreliable supplier of rice."
How dare you not think of the West first! It's indicitive of small mindedness that the BBC has sometimes. Maybe it's even more an indicator that we really do need to start getting crop growth...
How dare you not think of the West first!
It's indicitive of small mindedness that the BBC has sometimes. Maybe it's even more an indicator that we really do need to start getting crop growth sorted locally for a lot more nations. That's not easy, but wonder if it could help a lot of systems?
Doing that would interfere with lucrative cash crops/platations around the world. It would also take away leverage that can be used to pressure smaller weaker countries to comply with what more...
Doing that would interfere with lucrative cash crops/platations around the world. It would also take away leverage that can be used to pressure smaller weaker countries to comply with what more powerful countries want. If you look at the history of when and where there have been coups in the 20th century, you see a lot of these dynamics and against, not for self sufficiency in food production.
You can't fix the land these nations are on. Countries that can grow enough food will do so, and those that have no choice but to import. As global trade breaks down, there will be famine
Maybe it's even more an indicator that we really do need to start getting crop growth sorted locally for a lot more nations
You can't fix the land these nations are on. Countries that can grow enough food will do so, and those that have no choice but to import.
On the other hand, farmers like having money, not just to buy stuff but also to invest in machinery and land improvements and paying tuition to put their kids through school. Farming primarily for...
On the other hand, farmers like having money, not just to buy stuff but also to invest in machinery and land improvements and paying tuition to put their kids through school. Farming primarily for food crops is a pretty meagre existence. There's an inherent tension between keeping food cheap enough for people to afford it and live comfortably but expensive enough for farmers to not be destitute from growing it, and basically every country errs on the side of keeping the farmers poor.
It can, but that doesn't change truth of my statement. These trade bans will cause famines. Those are on India. The countries effected can't largely just grow more food.
It can, but that doesn't change truth of my statement. These trade bans will cause famines. Those are on India. The countries effected can't largely just grow more food.
It's complicated, as you have acknowledged. But India also has a responsibility to its own poor citizens. The US could grow more crops for food and fewer for ethanol also. A variety of ways exist...
It's complicated, as you have acknowledged. But India also has a responsibility to its own poor citizens. The US could grow more crops for food and fewer for ethanol also. A variety of ways exist to tweak the system to increase food production but somebody's ox is always gored.
There's a really big gap between a functional use case - ethanol production - and a bare ban on exports to protect your market while screwing your neighbors. An American shift away from ethanol...
The US could grow more crops for food and fewer for ethanol also.
There's a really big gap between a functional use case - ethanol production - and a bare ban on exports to protect your market while screwing your neighbors.
An American shift away from ethanol production wouldn't help. It would cause American food production to decrease thanks to the lower demand.
America likely could fill a lot of the gap India has left, so could the rest of the world, but in seasonal markets and crop cycles that take years to adjust spinning up extra production won't just happen overnight. It can take years.
Also these are dramatically different markets. Can a Malaysian afford to purchase food transported halfway across the world on a tanker ship by a highly mechanized nation?
And America doesn't produce much rice regardless. The climate isn't right for it.
You are right about the complexity and the time required to make changes. The US does produce human food varieties of corn and wheat in massive quantities however and grains are to a certain...
You are right about the complexity and the time required to make changes. The US does produce human food varieties of corn and wheat in massive quantities however and grains are to a certain extent fungible.
Norway has spent a lot of time working politically to get approval of building on the most fertile farmlands we have in the west/south-western parts of our landmass. Entire new cities have been...
Norway has spent a lot of time working politically to get approval of building on the most fertile farmlands we have in the west/south-western parts of our landmass.
Entire new cities have been built on land that was providing the rest of the country with both food and feed.
The "butter crisis" we experienced right before Christmas a few years back got some international attention as a kind of feelgood, funny story.
When that's the biggest problems you're facing, you're doing pretty good right?
Except the reason behind it was a lack of good feed for the cows that in turn lead to less milk, enough to make a noticeable difference when on such a large scale were talking about here. Even if the individual cow wasn't starving.
And a large part of that was due to having so much less good farmland in use.
We have laws that demand the same amount of new farmland be created as is removed when building on farmland.
But farming isn't just about moving the topsoil to somewhere else. The atmospheric and geographic location is vital.
Norway cannot feed itself, at least not as it is today.
And part of that is because not only have we built on so much previous farmland, the buildings is long rows of chained houses with the tiniest amount of grass outside, and vast swathes of landmass being bulldozed flat to build both housing and commercial lots.
This means removing natural landscaping that housed animals and insects. And making each household unable to potentially grow fruit and vegetables enough if need be. Post WW2, the focus on leaving enough room for potential small scale farming was considered. That is no longer the case.
On the other hand, people exist, have babies, and need housing. So it's not like the housing units aren't needed.
Unlike the article, I am not blaming India. They have their own hungry people to feed. However, the war in Ukraine and other causes are going to lead to significant hunger. Also after the war,...
Unlike the article, I am not blaming India. They have their own hungry people to feed. However, the war in Ukraine and other causes are going to lead to significant hunger. Also after the war, clearing mines in Ukraine is going to be a long difficult process.
Imagine America instituted a similar ban on wheat or oil. This criticism is justified, because the decision will lead to more people in the world starving so Indians can enjoy lower prices. At the...
The BBC is certainly framing it as a global problem for the poor and hungry everywhere, but didn't seem to worry much about India's poor and hungry
Imagine America instituted a similar ban on wheat or oil. This criticism is justified, because the decision will lead to more people in the world starving so Indians can enjoy lower prices.
At the end of the day that's the decision of India to make, but the criticism is normal and justified.
Between this and Russia leaving the grain deal it's not going to be a good time for food prices, especially if this summer being so hot ends up hurting harvests significantly.
Between this and Russia leaving the grain deal it's not going to be a good time for food prices, especially if this summer being so hot ends up hurting harvests significantly.
It would be nice to have a bit more discussion about the role of ABCD (the big four commodities trading companies) in world food supply chains and the lack of regulation thereof.
It would be nice to have a bit more discussion about the role of ABCD (the big four commodities trading companies) in world food supply chains and the lack of regulation thereof.
This feels so dishonest to me. India has banned the export of non-Basmati rice and there are no shortages of Indian Basmati rice in any stores, including Indian importer stores, in the UK. I have...
This feels so dishonest to me. India has banned the export of non-Basmati rice and there are no shortages of Indian Basmati rice in any stores, including Indian importer stores, in the UK.
I have Indian family members in other countries such as the USA who are also frustrated - not that they can't buy rice but that they have to eat Basmati instead of Sona Masuri. Is Basmati less tasty? Many Indians would say yes but not being able to buy your favourite kind of rice isn't a global food crisis.
I believe the concern is over lack of export of rice to poor countries, not to members of the anglosphere. The war in Ukraine is cutting off supplies of wheat worldwide. Rice could be a substitute...
I believe the concern is over lack of export of rice to poor countries, not to members of the anglosphere. The war in Ukraine is cutting off supplies of wheat worldwide. Rice could be a substitute if enough were available.
As someone who's worked with USAID, the suggestion that the US does the bare minimum upset me. I've personally witnessed the distribution warehouses containing the literally millions of kilograms...
As someone who's worked with USAID, the suggestion that the US does the bare minimum upset me. I've personally witnessed the distribution warehouses containing the literally millions of kilograms of foodstuffs that the US distributes every year - for free.
Similarly, I object rather strongly to the premise that the only thing stopping the US from feeding the entire world - which is not exactly a premise beyond reproach - is corruption.
The US is not perfect. But it donates more aid than any other country in the world by a large margin. And I think you may be underestimating the challenges of feeding the entire world from one rich nation.
I would be really interested to hear more about that. It's one of those topics that undergirds a stable world, and rarely gets the appreciation it deserves.
I would be really interested to hear more about that. It's one of those topics that undergirds a stable world, and rarely gets the appreciation it deserves.
Sure - USAID is a remarkable organization. Donating food and digging wells is probably the most visible thing they do, but they support a range of helpful things that almost defies belief....
Sure - USAID is a remarkable organization. Donating food and digging wells is probably the most visible thing they do, but they support a range of helpful things that almost defies belief. Supporting democracy, promoting womens' rights and empowerment, even a huge number of projects protecting the environment and biodiversity. It's incredible.
And while USAID has the biggest budget, there are a few other really impressive agencies as well. JICA - the Japanese aid agency - and GTZ - from the Germans - are particular standouts. JICA is particularly well-known for somehow managing to build complicated technical projects in the middle of nowhere.
I didn't have time to type this out last night, but one of the things that's so remarkable about USAID in particular is the sheer amount of effort that they are willing to go to. And in this case...
I didn't have time to type this out last night, but one of the things that's so remarkable about USAID in particular is the sheer amount of effort that they are willing to go to. And in this case USAID really is unique among aid organizations because there's no other government - maybe besides china, which isn't interested - which can pull off the staggering feat of logistics that these guys make look easy.
They deliver about 2-3 million metric tons of food each year, right? And I want to pause here for emphasis. That's two to three billion kilograms of food. Every year.
All that food goes to the world's poorest countries, the majority of which are landlocked. Take South Sudan as an example.
Fresh produce would never survive the transit time, obviously. So what they do is they take a lot of these much-maligned industrial crops and turn them into things like calorie-dense, shelf-stable vitamin enriched vegetable oil. They collect that oil and dried corn and put it on a cargo ship on the coast of America somewhere. They ship that oil and dried grains across the Atlantic, all the way around Africa, and get it to a port on the African coast. At this point we've moved thousands of miles, but it was mostly on the water, so that's easy.
Let's check our options for major ports. Sudan? Civil war. Somalia? Civil war. Eritrea? Police state. So maybe they go through Mombasa or Djibouti.
After picking Mombasa and dealing with all the logistics there, we're only about halfway. Africa has very few rail networks, so now they get this stuff off the boat and onto trucks and drive it through 2-3 countries - negotiating customs, tariffs, bureaucracy, and difficulties the whole time - until they can finally arrive in south Sudan.
Now all they have to do is protect the food so that it doesn't get stolen (usually, people working in the host government are the biggest concern there) and they can hand it out - after they get the word out, organize queues, decide which region of South Sudan needs it the most, and get clearance from the host government to do so, of course.
It's an epic undertaking that these guys quietly facilitate day in, day out, at enormous expense and with little publicity.
Hunger is, generally speaking, more related to preservation and distribution than to actually getting calories out of the ground. "just grow more food!" isn't the right way to solve the problem....
Exemplary
Hunger is, generally speaking, more related to preservation and distribution than to actually getting calories out of the ground. "just grow more food!" isn't the right way to solve the problem.
Look at it this way. US grocery store tomatoes are often inferior because they're picked early so that they can survive transit from the field to your grocery store, right? That field is usually in Mexico or California. Mexico to New York is pretty close, in global terms. America has a lot of rivers, coasts, a superb highway and rail network. Conditions couldn't be better for transporting stuff, and getting fresh food across this one country is still a challenge.
Now imagine trying to get that food across the ocean. And now imagine that just the ocean isn't enough - it needs to go to a landlocked country in Africa. On rails to a port on the American coast, on a ship across the Atlantic to a port on the African coast, on trucks through 2-3 different countries until it reaches the final destination. Which is usually in the middle of nowhere and often in a conflict zone. What does survive that sort of transit? Dried grains and refined vegetable oil. Good for getting people the calories they need, and produced by industrial crops.
the small amount allocated to that one program.
I know dunking on the US is popular, but again, this grates on me.
"Through USAID's Office of Food for Peace, USAID is the largest provider of food assistance in the world using both food grown in the U.S. and cash for more flexible programming abroad. In fiscal year 2018, USAID provided over $3.7 billion in emergency and development food assistance to the poorest corners of the world. Contributions included nearly 2.5 million metric tons of U.S. in-kind food [emphasis added - that's 2.5 billion kilograms] and local and regionally procured commodities, as well as cash transfers and food vouchers."
In full seriousness, if this is not enough, what is your proposed solution? I am not trying to be mean here, but I think you weren't familiar with the scope of the challenge involved. And that's okay! We can't all be experts in everything. But please consider my points instead of simply doubling down.
I don't believe the US is engaging in any military action in the middle east right now? Not to express any approval of everything that happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, but your talking point...
I don't believe the US is engaging in any military action in the middle east right now? Not to express any approval of everything that happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, but your talking point might need to be updated.
This seems reminiscent to all the kerfluffle when billionaires like Bill Gates make huge donations and get ganged up for not donating enough. USAID is just one government office/program that gives...
So, let's keep that aid in perspective, shall we?
This seems reminiscent to all the kerfluffle when billionaires like Bill Gates make huge donations and get ganged up for not donating enough.
USAID is just one government office/program that gives aid.
When a big player steps in (like the US Gov't) there are economies of scale that are unlocked that expands the relief effort.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
Most other countries are capable of feeding themselves. They need agricultural technologies and access to Western markets for their produce so they can sell their food for money. When we dump...
Most other countries are capable of feeding themselves. They need agricultural technologies and access to Western markets for their produce so they can sell their food for money. When we dump artificially cheap corn on them we end up starving their farmers of capital because that's money they can't make selling their own grain.
Here in Kansas they grow nothing but Corn and Soybeans now. There are only commercial farming operations with family farms being bought or sued out of business and commercial farming ops only go...
Here in Kansas they grow nothing but Corn and Soybeans now. There are only commercial farming operations with family farms being bought or sued out of business and commercial farming ops only go for whatever subsidies are available. Unfortunately the US government thinks only soybeans and corn are worth investing in while I think there should be more focus on healthy foods and regular crop rotation.
I'd argue that only 1 of those uses is necessary. Certain grasses are better for ethanol production and use significantly less fertilizers than corn. They also don't need replanting which would...
I'd argue that only 1 of those uses is necessary.
Certain grasses are better for ethanol production and use significantly less fertilizers than corn. They also don't need replanting which would save money (fuel, tractor maintenance, seeds, etc). If they grow more efficient crops for ethanol they could get away with using less land for ethanol, correct? Less land for ethanol = more land for food or more ethanol production on the same amount of land for better environmental returns.
I think the world would be a much better/healthier place without HFCS. While sugar/sugarcane production has it's own issues, the byproduct can be used to make ethanol as well like in Brazil.
The abruptness of the decision and the scale of the tariffs on exporting rice is certainly a challenge for the world especially given the ongoing difficulties with exporting grain from Ukraine, but at the same time, with domestic food costs rising 25% this year I can see why India would want to bolster domestic food security. The BBC is certainly framing it as a global problem for the poor and hungry everywhere, but didn't seem to worry much about India's poor and hungry. Is it bad for the world? Certainly. Is it a defensible decision in defending Indian domestic interests? Maybe yes?
India does get a weird treatment in international media where it's often talked about like Indians are obligated to self-sacrifice their national interests in service of international norms that the international community absolutely does not reciprocate.
https://www.wristband.com/content/which-countries-provide-receive-most-foreign-aid/
yet
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/world/heres-what-to-know-about-indias-ties-with-russia
Sounds like the rest of the world is sacrificing for India, while India pours money into Russia which they in turn use to murder Ukrainian civilians in an illegal war.
This isn't so cut and dry.
Let me start off by saying that the war Russia is waging is deplorable, and Putin deserves the deepest, darkest corner of hell.
India and erst-while USSR (now Russia) have been allies for the longest terms. Read up on the Liberation War of Bangladesh and how US chose to side with Pakistan which continued to assault freedoms of Bangladesh (then east-Pakistan), and UK, France abstained from taking action. Only USSR supported India on the global stage. Then, as India developed nuclear weaponry, Russia supported them in various ways, while US and allies continued to oppose and plan sanctions against India. All while staying mum when Pakistan, one of it's most hostile neighbours also developed nuclear weapons. This should set a backdrop of how USSR/Russia has supported India, when US and allies have either turned their back on India, or actively been hostile on various fronts.
At the same time, US and allies have not suffered even a fraction of the infractions that have been vetted on Russia for doing exactly the same in multiple parts of the world, for the longest of time. So there is also a very strong sense of pot calling the kettle black.
Has what Russia done to Ukraine despicable? Yes.
Have US and allies done worse and not been put under any sort of sanctions? Yes.
If all European countries get to choose the wars they are ok with, so does India.
Edit:
Adding some links for people to read up on.
US and allies on Bangladesh's Liberation War. You can read about India's involvement as well.
US's reaction to India's nuclear tests
could you extrapolate on what you mean when you say the US has done worse (presumably in comparison to Russia)? Russia has done some vile things throughout history.
I would assume they're talking about Iraq and Vietnam. I'm not sure I'd fully consider those worse given
Contemporary values and that South Vietnam requested military aid (even if much of the justification came through the Gulf of Tonkin incident)
The fact that the US removed a criminal against humanity in Iraq and implemented a democratic process that was--to my knowledge--as legitimate as they could
The fact that Russia has very possibly killed more Ukrainian civilians than the US killed Iraqi civilians (although more civilians overall were probably directly killed in Iraq--for the time being--and more Iraqis were certainly killed indirectly) and Putin and other Russian leaders have actually expressed a desire to rid the world of the Ukrainian identity and they have taken actions toward actual cultural genocide.
Not saying what the US did was really right or justifiable, just that the current war seems further from justification. Obviously both this one and the Iraq War were "justified" using lies.
I don't see how anyone can think those are worse then the atrocities that Russia has committed. I wish they would have replied with their thoughts but oh well.
Hey, glad to see you here! We used to interact a decent amount several years ago on reddit (I used a different username), but it's always fun to recognize people!
As you mentioned, the Vietnam war is surely a key highlight in the examples. Regardless of the justification, there were multiple attacks carried out against civilian settlements with Napalm. The effects of this were enough to term it a war crime after the attacks.
Iran and Afghanistan have had multiple civilian communities uprooted because of US's initial intervention in the local politics and then down the lane the wars that have been fought in those areas.
The Banana Wars that US waged in the Latin American region, which created instability in the nations of the area for years to come, creation of drug cartels being one of the chief issues. Sure, this wasn't an all out war, but based on the impact of the actions, I'm not sure if it should be easily removed.
Further, if we're talking about punishing wars than UAEs war against Yemen should also invite similar sanctions. We all know how unlikely that is given the close relations between UAE and US. So again, there seems to be an inconsistent guideline for measuring these atrocities.
Additionally, we should also keep in mind that by and large, US has a better PR machine working to maintain it's image as a global watchdog, which more often than not paint them as saviours.
Personally, I can never support a war as such. At the end, all it leads to is young people dying on the front lines. However, comparing the atrocities of the wars raged by US and Russia is such a thin line, that arguing about the semantics of it, rather than the actual impact to the cultures is a losing exercise.
I was travelling and hence the late response @iBleedorange (how do we tag a user in a response again? :D)
They could be talking about US sponsored coups, like the overthrow of Mosaddegh in Iran in favor of the Shah. Or conquests like Hawaii or the Philippines. Or internventions in South and Central America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Wars#:~:text=Honduras%2C%20where%20the%20United%20Fruit,%2C%201919%2C%201924%20and%201925.
I presume they were speaking of multiple direct wars initiated by the US in Afghanistan and Iraq, and involvement in Vietnam, Iraq-Iran, etc. And then there's also CIA-initiated conflicts in South America.
https://www.indiatoday.in/diu/story/non-basmati-white-rice-ban-by-union-government-export-diu-story-2413209-2023-07-28
Read the local coverage here. Production is low and high local demand.
I haven't really noticed this, but I do think that it's reasonable to consider the impacts of this on the global food market.
Do you have any other examples off the top of your head? I’m not too familiar with the topic.
A good example would be the public outcry and condemnation when India tested nuclear weapons, but the comparative non-event it was treated as when Pakistan did the same thing.
Indian observers find Western criticisms of Indian communal politics deeply hypocritical while nakedly authoritarian governments that commit unambiguous human rights violations are retained as staunch allies (such as Pakistan or Saudi Arabia or even Israel). The general impression is that the West does not respect India as a peer with whom to negotiate or deal, but as an unruly child in need of disciplining. Indias refusal to engage with great power politics and remain unaligned has never worked for the strongly “us or them” approach that American foreign policy adopted throughout the Cold War, and that basic dynamic has never gone away.
Presumably talking about their passive support of Russia in the current war.
“Passive” or, financing the war.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/world/heres-what-to-know-about-indias-ties-with-russia
https://www.npr.org/2023/02/20/1156478956/russia-india-relations-oil-modi-putin
https://www.voanews.com/a/india-remains-steadfast-in-partnership-with-russia/6883794.html
The article above starts with a photo of a Canadian grocery store where rice is seeing a markup bc of the Indian tariffs.
Canada takes in an insane number of Indian migrants. Like, I'm pro-immigration and I'm pro-Indian migrants, but it's crazy how much of our immigration program they make up and how much is built around catering to them. This goes beyond just bringing people to Canada -- it helps people in India too, bc a lot of migrants build lives here and contribute but also extract significant amounts of money from the Canadian economy to send back to India.
Ironically, the Indians back home having trouble affording food are making it (even) more expensive for the Indians living in Canada.
I know not every country has this kind of relationship with India but Canada does... something like 7% of our population identify as South Asian and the bulk of that is Indians, and South Asian populations are especially prominent in certain parts of the country like here in Ontario.
I don't blame them for the situation of course... it's a tough one. Made tougher by India's support of Russia in the Ukraine war which makes international relations more difficult (I'm no expert but I imagine that decision has to be purely to appease China... because every person of Indian descent I know in Canada is strongly against it).
India does not support Russia’s invasion. They’ve abstained on every vote pertaining to it and backchannel requested the Russians to back off. They’re just unwilling to disengage from Russia for the simple fact that most of their military technology comes from there and there are no alternative sources of similar technology that aren’t either hostile foreign powers (China), completely faithless allies whose deals come with strings attached (the United States), or incapable of producing at the scale required (Israel, Germany, etc.)
Russia is also India’s only counterbalance against China in the UN Security Council, because they deploy their veto reliably in India’s interests in ways the US never does.
Indians are predominantly against the war, but as a foreign policy they’re also not willing to stick their necks out in support of an ostensible “rules based international order” that functionally does not exist whenever their interests are concerned. This is demonstrated consistently any time China violates Indian border claims in Aksai Chin or Arunachal Pradesh, or any time cross-border terrorism financed by America’s chief ally in the region starts to pick up. This isn’t just a BJP thing, this is a cross-party consensus within the Indian foreign policy sphere.
I agree that they could have definitely explored this a little more fairly, but to be fair to the BBC they seem to reporting on domestic concerns rather than deliberately manifesting a narrative:
How dare you not think of the West first!
It's indicitive of small mindedness that the BBC has sometimes. Maybe it's even more an indicator that we really do need to start getting crop growth sorted locally for a lot more nations. That's not easy, but wonder if it could help a lot of systems?
Doing that would interfere with lucrative cash crops/platations around the world. It would also take away leverage that can be used to pressure smaller weaker countries to comply with what more powerful countries want. If you look at the history of when and where there have been coups in the 20th century, you see a lot of these dynamics and against, not for self sufficiency in food production.
Oh I know, I was being quasi-faceitious about some of these things.
You can't fix the land these nations are on. Countries that can grow enough food will do so, and those that have no choice but to import.
As global trade breaks down, there will be famine
Need for cash crops to export to provide foreign exchange can and does interfere with local food production.
On the other hand, farmers like having money, not just to buy stuff but also to invest in machinery and land improvements and paying tuition to put their kids through school. Farming primarily for food crops is a pretty meagre existence. There's an inherent tension between keeping food cheap enough for people to afford it and live comfortably but expensive enough for farmers to not be destitute from growing it, and basically every country errs on the side of keeping the farmers poor.
It can, but that doesn't change truth of my statement. These trade bans will cause famines. Those are on India. The countries effected can't largely just grow more food.
It's complicated, as you have acknowledged. But India also has a responsibility to its own poor citizens. The US could grow more crops for food and fewer for ethanol also. A variety of ways exist to tweak the system to increase food production but somebody's ox is always gored.
There's a really big gap between a functional use case - ethanol production - and a bare ban on exports to protect your market while screwing your neighbors.
An American shift away from ethanol production wouldn't help. It would cause American food production to decrease thanks to the lower demand.
America likely could fill a lot of the gap India has left, so could the rest of the world, but in seasonal markets and crop cycles that take years to adjust spinning up extra production won't just happen overnight. It can take years.
Also these are dramatically different markets. Can a Malaysian afford to purchase food transported halfway across the world on a tanker ship by a highly mechanized nation?
And America doesn't produce much rice regardless. The climate isn't right for it.
You are right about the complexity and the time required to make changes. The US does produce human food varieties of corn and wheat in massive quantities however and grains are to a certain extent fungible.
Norway has spent a lot of time working politically to get approval of building on the most fertile farmlands we have in the west/south-western parts of our landmass.
Entire new cities have been built on land that was providing the rest of the country with both food and feed.
The "butter crisis" we experienced right before Christmas a few years back got some international attention as a kind of feelgood, funny story.
When that's the biggest problems you're facing, you're doing pretty good right?
Except the reason behind it was a lack of good feed for the cows that in turn lead to less milk, enough to make a noticeable difference when on such a large scale were talking about here. Even if the individual cow wasn't starving.
And a large part of that was due to having so much less good farmland in use.
We have laws that demand the same amount of new farmland be created as is removed when building on farmland.
But farming isn't just about moving the topsoil to somewhere else. The atmospheric and geographic location is vital.
Norway cannot feed itself, at least not as it is today.
And part of that is because not only have we built on so much previous farmland, the buildings is long rows of chained houses with the tiniest amount of grass outside, and vast swathes of landmass being bulldozed flat to build both housing and commercial lots.
This means removing natural landscaping that housed animals and insects. And making each household unable to potentially grow fruit and vegetables enough if need be. Post WW2, the focus on leaving enough room for potential small scale farming was considered. That is no longer the case.
On the other hand, people exist, have babies, and need housing. So it's not like the housing units aren't needed.
Norway is not one of the countries that are at risk of starving. Nor is it at risk of losing access to exports.
Unlike the article, I am not blaming India. They have their own hungry people to feed. However, the war in Ukraine and other causes are going to lead to significant hunger. Also after the war, clearing mines in Ukraine is going to be a long difficult process.
Imagine America instituted a similar ban on wheat or oil. This criticism is justified, because the decision will lead to more people in the world starving so Indians can enjoy lower prices.
At the end of the day that's the decision of India to make, but the criticism is normal and justified.
Between this and Russia leaving the grain deal it's not going to be a good time for food prices, especially if this summer being so hot ends up hurting harvests significantly.
It would be nice to have a bit more discussion about the role of ABCD (the big four commodities trading companies) in world food supply chains and the lack of regulation thereof.
This feels so dishonest to me. India has banned the export of non-Basmati rice and there are no shortages of Indian Basmati rice in any stores, including Indian importer stores, in the UK.
I have Indian family members in other countries such as the USA who are also frustrated - not that they can't buy rice but that they have to eat Basmati instead of Sona Masuri. Is Basmati less tasty? Many Indians would say yes but not being able to buy your favourite kind of rice isn't a global food crisis.
I believe the concern is over lack of export of rice to poor countries, not to members of the anglosphere. The war in Ukraine is cutting off supplies of wheat worldwide. Rice could be a substitute if enough were available.
As someone who's worked with USAID, the suggestion that the US does the bare minimum upset me. I've personally witnessed the distribution warehouses containing the literally millions of kilograms of foodstuffs that the US distributes every year - for free.
Similarly, I object rather strongly to the premise that the only thing stopping the US from feeding the entire world - which is not exactly a premise beyond reproach - is corruption.
The US is not perfect. But it donates more aid than any other country in the world by a large margin. And I think you may be underestimating the challenges of feeding the entire world from one rich nation.
I would be really interested to hear more about that. It's one of those topics that undergirds a stable world, and rarely gets the appreciation it deserves.
Sure - USAID is a remarkable organization. Donating food and digging wells is probably the most visible thing they do, but they support a range of helpful things that almost defies belief. Supporting democracy, promoting womens' rights and empowerment, even a huge number of projects protecting the environment and biodiversity. It's incredible.
And while USAID has the biggest budget, there are a few other really impressive agencies as well. JICA - the Japanese aid agency - and GTZ - from the Germans - are particular standouts. JICA is particularly well-known for somehow managing to build complicated technical projects in the middle of nowhere.
I didn't have time to type this out last night, but one of the things that's so remarkable about USAID in particular is the sheer amount of effort that they are willing to go to. And in this case USAID really is unique among aid organizations because there's no other government - maybe besides china, which isn't interested - which can pull off the staggering feat of logistics that these guys make look easy.
They deliver about 2-3 million metric tons of food each year, right? And I want to pause here for emphasis. That's two to three billion kilograms of food. Every year.
All that food goes to the world's poorest countries, the majority of which are landlocked. Take South Sudan as an example.
Fresh produce would never survive the transit time, obviously. So what they do is they take a lot of these much-maligned industrial crops and turn them into things like calorie-dense, shelf-stable vitamin enriched vegetable oil. They collect that oil and dried corn and put it on a cargo ship on the coast of America somewhere. They ship that oil and dried grains across the Atlantic, all the way around Africa, and get it to a port on the African coast. At this point we've moved thousands of miles, but it was mostly on the water, so that's easy.
Let's check our options for major ports. Sudan? Civil war. Somalia? Civil war. Eritrea? Police state. So maybe they go through Mombasa or Djibouti.
After picking Mombasa and dealing with all the logistics there, we're only about halfway. Africa has very few rail networks, so now they get this stuff off the boat and onto trucks and drive it through 2-3 countries - negotiating customs, tariffs, bureaucracy, and difficulties the whole time - until they can finally arrive in south Sudan.
Now all they have to do is protect the food so that it doesn't get stolen (usually, people working in the host government are the biggest concern there) and they can hand it out - after they get the word out, organize queues, decide which region of South Sudan needs it the most, and get clearance from the host government to do so, of course.
It's an epic undertaking that these guys quietly facilitate day in, day out, at enormous expense and with little publicity.
As a total amount this is true, but as a percentage of gross national income the US actually ranks toward the low end.
Hunger is, generally speaking, more related to preservation and distribution than to actually getting calories out of the ground. "just grow more food!" isn't the right way to solve the problem.
Look at it this way. US grocery store tomatoes are often inferior because they're picked early so that they can survive transit from the field to your grocery store, right? That field is usually in Mexico or California. Mexico to New York is pretty close, in global terms. America has a lot of rivers, coasts, a superb highway and rail network. Conditions couldn't be better for transporting stuff, and getting fresh food across this one country is still a challenge.
Now imagine trying to get that food across the ocean. And now imagine that just the ocean isn't enough - it needs to go to a landlocked country in Africa. On rails to a port on the American coast, on a ship across the Atlantic to a port on the African coast, on trucks through 2-3 different countries until it reaches the final destination. Which is usually in the middle of nowhere and often in a conflict zone. What does survive that sort of transit? Dried grains and refined vegetable oil. Good for getting people the calories they need, and produced by industrial crops.
I know dunking on the US is popular, but again, this grates on me.
"Through USAID's Office of Food for Peace, USAID is the largest provider of food assistance in the world using both food grown in the U.S. and cash for more flexible programming abroad. In fiscal year 2018, USAID provided over $3.7 billion in emergency and development food assistance to the poorest corners of the world. Contributions included nearly 2.5 million metric tons of U.S. in-kind food [emphasis added - that's 2.5 billion kilograms] and local and regionally procured commodities, as well as cash transfers and food vouchers."
In full seriousness, if this is not enough, what is your proposed solution? I am not trying to be mean here, but I think you weren't familiar with the scope of the challenge involved. And that's okay! We can't all be experts in everything. But please consider my points instead of simply doubling down.
I don't believe the US is engaging in any military action in the middle east right now? Not to express any approval of everything that happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, but your talking point might need to be updated.
This seems reminiscent to all the kerfluffle when billionaires like Bill Gates make huge donations and get ganged up for not donating enough.
USAID is just one government office/program that gives aid.
When a big player steps in (like the US Gov't) there are economies of scale that are unlocked that expands the relief effort.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
Please don't be a jerk.
Most other countries are capable of feeding themselves. They need agricultural technologies and access to Western markets for their produce so they can sell their food for money. When we dump artificially cheap corn on them we end up starving their farmers of capital because that's money they can't make selling their own grain.
Here in Kansas they grow nothing but Corn and Soybeans now. There are only commercial farming operations with family farms being bought or sued out of business and commercial farming ops only go for whatever subsidies are available. Unfortunately the US government thinks only soybeans and corn are worth investing in while I think there should be more focus on healthy foods and regular crop rotation.
That corn goes to a variety of uses that are not basic survival supply food including animal feed and ethanol and high fructose corn syrup.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/corn-and-other-feed-grains/feed-grains-sector-at-a-glance/
I'd argue that only 1 of those uses is necessary.
Certain grasses are better for ethanol production and use significantly less fertilizers than corn. They also don't need replanting which would save money (fuel, tractor maintenance, seeds, etc). If they grow more efficient crops for ethanol they could get away with using less land for ethanol, correct? Less land for ethanol = more land for food or more ethanol production on the same amount of land for better environmental returns.
I think the world would be a much better/healthier place without HFCS. While sugar/sugarcane production has it's own issues, the byproduct can be used to make ethanol as well like in Brazil.