Bad policy, not biofuel, drive food prices: Merkel

Bad Bad policy, not biofuel, drive food prices: Merkel

BERLIN (Reuters) - Bad agricultural policies and changing eating habits in developing nations are primarily to blame for rising food prices, not biofuel production as some critics claim, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday.

Environmentalists and humanitarian groups have stepped up campaigning against biofuels, arguing they divert production away from food and animal feed while contributing to sharp rises in the price of cereals and milk products.

But Merkel, whose country is Europe's largest biofuel producer, said the rise in food prices was not mainly due to biofuels but to "inadequate agricultural policies in developing countries" as well as "insufficient forecasts of changes in nutritional habits" in emerging markets.

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Found this article somewhere... What?

Did the german Chancellor Merkel really said things like:

"People are eating twice a day, and if a third of one billion people in India do that, it adds up to 300 million people. That's a large part of the European Union,"

"And if they suddenly consume twice as much food as before and if 100 million Chinese start drinking milk too, then of course our milk quotas become skewed, and much else too,"

So all the recent problems of soaring food prices are blamed on the developing and emerging markets population for eating too much? So what is her alternative solution for hungry people who are simply trying to fill their stomach?

Unbelievable



[edit on 29/4/08 by IchiNiSan]

Another crazy mouth piece with a bogus excuse.

Suddenly, we are all overeating. Right.

It just sick. And its a lie.

reply to post by IchiNiSan


You don't think that those observations are valid? Billions of people enjoying a higher standard of living is a huge drain on the worlds resources.

I don't think there is an easy solution to the problem. I am sure there is a portion of the people in power that would choose to try and keep developing nations poor to limit their drain on the rest of the world and keep the status quo. That is an easier solution than reforming the entire system of food production and distribution.

Kissinger talked about this back in the 70's and that was his solution back then. So you know that many other members of the government feel the same way.

I don't know what the solution is but something will need to be sorted out soon. I think that several million people are going to starve to death before we figure anything out.

Maybe Merkel is right but I think she is a true racist. So she think that Indian should live in a hungry world and eat only one meal per day; definitely Chinese should not drink milk at all, it is the right of western people.

Indeed, I think the food crisis may be a conspiracy. Since we didn't hear any significant decrease in crop production and increase in population.