Statistics on food consumption show that the Chinese and Indians aren’t becoming big meat eaters. So that “trend,” popularly raised as a reason for the boom in commodities, didn’t drive up corn, wheat and soybean prices two years ago, says a study by World Bank Development Prospects.
“A closer look at the growth trends of population and income over the past decades, coupled with those of demand for food commodities, shows no evidence that food demand growth accelerated either in China and India or in the world as a whole,” says the study.