America's Annual Shopping Frenzy Settles...

One thing I admire Americans for... their ability to amass... from household items to clothes to credit card debt to educational qualifications, pets, etc everything that can be hoarded they will do it. Both people as well as institutions - commercial and non-profit - have perfected the art of sales. If corporations offer deals and appeal to the consumers ego, non-profit groups dangle the carrot of self-actualization and make people part with their money.
 
Americans are in a shopping mood throughout the year as evidenced by the bustling malls that are always full of people buying stuff. The past few years this has been down due to the economic distress and job losses millions of Americans have faced. Otherwise it is business as usual in most shopping malls. The shopping reaches dizzying heights during the festival holiday season just after Halloween and continues until Christmas.
 
Since the economy has not turned around yet American corporations were impatient to rake in profits of the Thanksgiving shopping. So they decided to forget about the prayer and holy aspect of the holiday and just focus on the shopping aspect. The end result stores opened several hours earlier than before for the traditional black friday shopping. Of course there was some outcry but consumers nevertheless thronged to the stores looking for deals.
 
I wonder what it will be next year... maybe the stores will open a week in advance for shoppers of black friday. If that happens then consumerism would have successfully prevailed over tradition. I guess in the land of consumption and corporation few would rue this happening.
Now that the initial frenzy of holiday shopping has settled down we will have to wait and watch out to see how much money changed hands over the weekend and how much profit corporations raked in...

The Global Food Crisis and President Bush

With the rise in gas prices food prices has been hitting the roof globally. There have been food riots and rebellions in several third world nations in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Like a phoenix rising out of nothing the “knowledgeable” American president made a statement that Indian middle class is responsible for the global food crisis. To quote his exact words from a Washington Post article: India, where the “middle class is larger than our entire population." But "when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food," he said. "And so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up.”

Like most Indians living worldwide my first reaction was that of outrage and anger at the irresponsible statements of the American president. I then decided to go to the root of the problem and find out for real if India’s prosperity had anything to do with the global food crisis and what is America’s role in this problem. My findings were astounding and throw a light on who is actually responsible for the global food crisis.

In this essay I would like to start off by comparing the resources of two nations India and US. I have chosen these two nations because the president of the latter accused the citizens of the former of eating too much and causing a global food crisis. Let us get to the basics first:

Total Population:
US: 301 million
India: 1,129 million (1.2 billion)

Land available for agriculture
US: 938.28 million acres (Source: Economic Research Service, USA)
India: 445.95 million acres (54.9 percent of total land area of 3,287,263 sq. km or 812.30 million acres) (Source: Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations)

Total food wastage:
US: Almost 100 billion pounds of food is wasted in America each year. The annual value of this lost food is estimated at around $31 billion. (49 million people could have been fed by those lost resources) - Sound Vision
In the US 40-50% of all food ready for harvest never gets eaten - Global Issues
27 percent of the food available for consumption (about a pound of food every day for every American) ends up in garbage. - Dallas Morning News
India: Wastage of harvested food items is estimated to be valued around Rs.58,000 crore (US$ 13.80 billion) per annum. - One India

Obesity trends:
US: Nearly 237 million Americans are currently overweight. The U.S. is the 9th fattest nation in the world.
India: India ranks 176 among the world’s fattest nations and has 16% obese population (180.64 million)
Source: Forbes

Keeping the above statistics in mind I would like to elaborate on how much food gets wasted and where all they are being scrapped in the US. I read this article titled “One country's table scraps is another country's meal” by New York Times writer Andrew Martin in Dallas Morning News recently and was spurred to write this blog post.

• Across several parts of the US there is already a serious hatred about India and Indians which has stemmed from outsourcing. People hate India because of several reasons:
  Several people in the US lost jobs to better qualified and hardworking and cheaper Indian employees.
• Next when TATA Motors launched its fuel efficient Nano aka the people’s car, American’s driving hyper-polluting, fuel guzzling cars said millions of Indians will buy Tata Nanos and there will be a global fuel crisis.
• Now with Bush saying that rising prosperity of Indian middle classes is one of the causes of the global food crisis, this fire of hatred is getting fanned. And every time an American shops for grocery, it would not be uncommon for him/ her to be cursing Indians for rising prices.

Well these facts are not real and I have already proved in my blog post about “Who Gets the Fuel?” how Nano is not the threat to world’s petroleum reserves but the fuel-guzzling big V-8’s and V-6 cars are!

According to the article by Andrew Martin, a US government study estimated that “an estimated 27 percent of the food available for consumption, according to a government study – and it happens at the supermarket, in restaurants and cafeterias and in your very own kitchen. It works out to about a pound of food every day for every American”.

The main wastage happens at several places and due to several reasons. At grocery stores produce is discarded into trash because of minor spoilage or even cosmetic blemishes. According to a US Department of Agriculture estimate two years ago, 96.4 billion pounds of the 356 billion pounds of edible food in the United States was never eaten. This food that was wasted includes fresh vegetables and fruits, milk, grains, etc. But the study didn’t include ready-to-eat foods that are stacked high in super market shelves.

Several studies have proved time and again that Americans are the world’s largest trash generators. A study by the US Environmental Protection Agency recently declared that highest food wasters in the world are also Americans, who generate about 30 million tons of food waste year after year.

I am not saying that Indians don’t waste any food, but it is relatively lower and considering a population of 1.2 billion the amount of food wasted is normal.

According to a US Department of Agriculture estimate, if only 5 percent of the wasted food were to be recovered/ prevented, it could feed 4 million people a day and if this recovery were to be increased to 25 percent, it would feed 20 million people.

Food recovery and Why it is not happening now?
During Clinton’s administration, a national effort was launched to prevent/ curb food waste. One of the initiatives was to recover leftover crops from fields. But the effort was discontinued by the Bush administration.

And President Bush says that Indians are responsible for the global food crisis. Can he get any more stupid?

An India-Phobic Panel Discussion

Today I attended a panel discussion titled "Who gets the fuel? Us or them?" at the Preston Ridge Campus of the Collin County Community College, where I am currently taking a course in Business Mathematics. This panel discussion was conceived and organised as part of the college's "Earth Day" celebrations. There were different activities in the college all related to environment in some way or the other. There were stalls of Animal Shelters, Electricity Companies, Eco-friendly tattoos, a flute recital etc.

The panel discussion was the grand finale of the event. When I came to know about the discussion couple of weeks ago I felt both outraged and hurt. These people are accusing India of competing with them for fuel. I am pretty sure that more than half of Americans have never been to India and would never visit our country at all. They have so little knowledge about the country but they want to point fingers. Hence I did some research about petroleum consumption and after carefully making notes I went to the discussion to make my point.

The panel comprising of four students of the college was moderated by faculty members from the Geology, Chemistry and Sociology departments. The discussion started with a presentation by the faculty members about how it would be a catastrophe if India's major car manufacturers Tata Motors released their newest car Tata Nano (650 cc) into the market. They expressed fears over millions of Indians buying the small car which would result in increased fuel consumption, carbon dioxide emissions and pollution. One of the ideas put forth by the faculty was that "Should America exert pressure on India to ban production of the Nano Car?"

As I sat through the presentation I didn't know whether to laugh or to wring my hands in despair. They presented comparative facts about India and America which were packaged to portray as if India was a potential world polluter.

In my opinion the title of panel discussion is a big farce. It is the same as a huge elephant saying that it is not finding enough food because the little rabbit ate it all and so the rabbit should be banished from the forest.

After the panelists had had their say the audience was given a chance to speak. Though I was one of the first to raise my hand, my chance came last after all the others had had their say. Last but definitely not the least, here are some of the facts that I presented. At the end of my talk the panel, moderator and other faculty were apolegetic about some of their statements and said so.

Population Vs fuel consumption
America accounts for a mere 5 percent (300 million) of the world's population, but consumes an unfair amount of the world's total fuel production. 44 percent. On the other hand India accounts to 20 percent of the world's population (5 times America's population) and consumes only 4 percent of the world's production of fuel.

Number of Cars and other vehicles
American has over 270 million passeger cars and trucks, 12.9 million recreational boats and 6.2 million motorcycles. (833.34 cars per 1,000 people)

India has only 9.17 million passenger vehicles vehicles, a few hundred recreational boats and 7 million motorcycles. (7 cars per 1,000 people)

Average Cars
The average car in America is at least 3,000 cc and runs on a V-6 engine (6 cylinder)
The average Indian car (Maruti 800) runs on a 800 cc, 3 cylinder engine.

Average Fuel efficiency
America's vehicles return an average fuel efficiency of 17.1 miles per gallon.
Indian cars return an average fuel efficiency of 35.65 miles per gallon.

Fuel consumption
America consumes over 92,53,000 barrels per day (388.6 million gallons per day)
India consumes only 38.8 million gallons a day.

Most Fuel Efficient car in America
Toyota Prius - powered by two engines churning out a mammoth 145 horsepower, this car returns a fuel efficiency of 46 miles per gallon.

Most Fuel Efficient Car in India
Tata Nano - powered by a small 650 cc engine, churns out a decent 30 horsepower and returns a superb 54 miles per gallon.

Greenhouse Gas emission
America - 1,559 metric tonnes
India - 250 metric tonnes

Here is the biggest punch. Everyone in the world says India is a dirty country. But who generates most trash in the world? It is the world's self-appointed policeman and big brother AMERICA.

Per capita Garbage/ solid waste generated per year
US - 230 million tons (about 4.5 pounds per person per day)
India - 18 million tons of trash. If we were to calculate the amount of solid wastes generated by individuals in India it would be abysmally low.

I am really glad I attended the panel discussion and made people aware of the reality. Perhaps it will lead them to think about the future of the world and probably one of them may decide to buy a smaller car. MAYBE.... I don't know... and I wont know too.

I look forward to hearing from my blog readers about their opinions on this subject.