By April Reeves
Anderson Cooper reports on a series by David Gewirtz, author of “How To Save Jobs“. David suggests the following:
From AC360: Next up was a look at grain consumption. Grain has always been an indicator of even the most basic of civilization, so a look at how the middle-classing of developing countries would affect the food supply based on grain usage seemed appropriate.
This time, I used data from the Economic Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture Production. Worldwide, humans consume about 1.9 billion metric tons of grain each year.
Today, the United States consumes about 287 million metric tons of grain, or about 14.8 percent of the world’s total supply.
China consumes slightly more than we do, at about 406 million metric tons of grain, or about 21 percent of the world’s supply.
India has a lot of starving people, and that shows in its grain use. India consumes only about 196 million metric tons of grain, about 10 percent of the world’s total. You can see India’s ups and downs written in the numbers. Some years, like 1993, their grain consumption went up 5.6 percent. But other years, like 2001, their grain consumption dropped by 4.3 percent. Neither of these are big fluctuations, but it does show some years Indian citizens ate a little more and other years, they ate a little less.
What if they consume grain at the same rate as we do here?
