posted May 04, 2008 02:09 AM              

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WASHINGTON: A preachy America and a prickly India are both mouthing off over the world food crisis.

Some of India’s political leadership was foaming at the mouth on Saturday after misconstruing US President George Bush’s remark that increasing prosperity in India had led to better diets, greater demand, and increasing prices, all of which had contributed to the global food crisis.

But the US President’s comments regarding India were more complimentary than condemnatory and the flaming reaction back home appeared completely misplaced, given the broad range of reasons the US president identified for the food crisis.

Asked about the rising food prices at an event in Missouri on Friday, Bush launched into an explanation about the increasing demand worldwide arising from greater prosperity in the developing world "which is good" because it enabled the US to sell products into big countries.

Bush then offered the example of India — "just as an interesting thought for you" — which he said has 350 million people who are classified as middle class. "That’s bigger than America. Their middle class is larger than our entire population. 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," he said.

Several US lawmakers and economists have referred in the same vein to the growing prosperity and increased consumption in China and India, but none have implied that the two countries should eat less or go hungry — the prickly interpretation being bandied by India’s tetchy politicians.

In fact, the India-China growth is just one of the reasons being advanced by what some economists are calling a "perfect storm" that is leading to a worldwide crisis. Bush and others have also referred to drought in various parts of the world and the role of an evolving bio-fuel policy.

While some economists and scientists have blamed the US and EU for the food crisis because of its excessive emphasis on bio-fuels leading to diversion of arable land and food crops to making energy, Bush defended the policy, calling himself "an ethanol person".

"The interim step to getting away from oil and gas is to go to ethanol and battery technologies for your automobiles. I think it makes sense for America to be growing energy. I’d much rather be paying our farmers when we go to the gas pump than paying some nation that may not like us," Bush said.

The role of bio-fuels in the escalating food crisis has been a more heated topic of discussion than the improving diets in China and India, both of which are self-sufficient in foodgrains and consume what they grow. Many US leaders and economists have criticized the heavy subsidies offered to wealthy American farmers, blaming the policy for diversion of farmland to growing bio-fuel crops like corn.

On Thursday, a US lawmaker turned up a press conference with a cob of corn, a box of cereal, and a dime, to argue that it was unfair to blame farmers for trying to get better returns by growing corn for bio-fuel. Not only was such corn inedible, but the farmers also made only a dime on each box of cereal if they grew food crops, maintained Senator Charles Grassley, one of the two farmers in the US Senate.

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