Food Photo: Memorable or Meager?

A local newspaper just ran a contest inviting readers to send in pictures of food in order to win tickets to shows and restaurants. An organization in Colombia had a related, but different, idea. To inspire people to give to its "Meal For Share" campaign, the group posted photos of frugal, often disgusting, meals that poor people eat to survive.

     Incidentally, hunger is not limited to any one place in the world. In the past month, 9% of the 11,979 U.S. adults who responded to an online survey (which missed those too poor to have online access at home) by Zogby Analytics (zogbyanalytics.com) said they had gone without food for 24 hours because of lack of money.

     Once you see someone digging through a dumpster or dump to make a meal out of scraps, carefully styled and lighted food photos become a reminder to make a contribution to organizations that feed the world's hungry. One food blogger reports that she uses salad forks and dainty appetizer spoons in her pictures, because she doesn't want regular-sized flatware to overpower the colorful servings shown on her tasteful aqua plates. Poor people are just happy to grow what they need or earn enough money to feed their families.

An Example Helps Understand the World Economy

For dairy farmers in the United States, 2014 is an excellent year. Revenue from good prices for milk and milk products is up, and feed costs are down. Farmers can pay off debts and buy new equipment. Profits in 2015 are not expected to be as good. Why? Not because milk prices are expected to go down, and feed costs up, but because exports of cheese, whey, milk powder, and other dairy products are expected to decline.

     The U.S. dollar is strengthening in relation to foreign currencies. You  can check the value of the dollar against the Japanese yen, Russian ruble, and other foreign money at finance.yahoo.com/currency. On October 31, 2014, for example, one U.S. dollar only bought 109.21
Japanese yen or 41.01 Russian rubles. Today, a dollar can purchase 118.32 Japanese yen or 44.97 Russian rubles.

     How does the greater purchasing power of the dollar affect U.S. exports? People in foreign countries need to buy U.S. dollars before they can buy U.S. goods, such as cheese and whey. When their money can buy less expensive foreign currencies, they will buy less expensive products from U.S. competitors, and U.S. dairy product and other exports will decline.

     On the other hand, if a U.S. farm family always wanted to visit a foreign country, 2015 might be a good time to plan a trip. It could take fewer U.S. dollars to pay for foreign hotel rooms, food, and souvenirs, if foreign currencies are weaker in relation to U.S. dollars. (Learn more about foreign currencies at the earlier blog post, "When to Buy/Sell in the World Market.")

   

Don't Study by the Fire

Legend tells us Abe Lincoln studied by fire light, with a candle or in front of his fireplace. That's no longer necessary, even in poor countries and rural areas with no electric lights.

Female-owned Rethaka, a South African innovator of eco-friendly goods, now offers 100% recycled, solar-powered backpacks that double as study lamps at night. Read more about African ideas that break up big jobs to give smaller companies a chance to provide employment, ways to involve the public in the fight against corruption, new forms of conveying the news, and more at trendwatching.com (10 African Trends).

Problems Present Career Opportunities

Mobile phones, apps, and computer access are causing a boom in online shopping around the world. Where's the problem? Supply chain logistics. No wonder Amazon is experimenting with the use of drones to deliver goods. Could this system work in India?

E-commerce depends on logistics as India realized when its shipping and delivery network failed to handle the high volume of online purchases during this year's peak shopping season of Diwali, the festival of lights. With a warehouse shortage, only six dedicated cargo planes, and an average truck speed of 23 km per hour in intercity traffic, it was impossible to insure on-time delivery, especially in outlying smaller cities and towns where demand for goods not available locally was greatest. Further complicating the e-commerce business in India is the fact that credit cards are relatively new and as much as 70% of online purchases pay cash on delivery.

With online shopping expected to reach $10 billion in the next three years, India's e-commerce sector, like similar sectors around the world, presents a number of growth opportunities. Big Basket, an online grocery service in India now has operations in 15 major cities and 50 smaller towns. It also has competition from rapidly expanding Grofers and Pepper Tap, which deliver food from local stores rather than from their own inventories. Big Basket maintains its own inventory of fruits, vegetables, and packaged goods and also has added "Blue Apron" pre-packaged ingredients for ready-to-cook meals.

 Job estimates suggest India's e-commerce industry will need 100,000 to 150,000 employees compared to 25,000 today. Along with established logistics companies, such as GATI and DHL, GoJavas, Ecom Express, Delhivery, and other local and foreign start-ups see opportunity for expansion and growth. Instead of today's short term relationships that retailers have with carriers that offer the lowest bids, long term partnerships will enable carriers to stabilize prices at a higher level. Then, there is the opportunity for credit card companies to educate customers about the way they can facilitate merchandise purchases and returns. Judging from recent plans by mega online US retailer, Amazon, the price of e-commerce goods will be going up as costs for picking, packing, and transporting items increases.

(See additional information about careers in logistics at the earlier blog post, "What Do You Want to Be?")

Reasons to Celebrate Global Victories

Kim Jong-un's North Korea has released Kenneth Bae and two other U.S. citizens; Cuba has released the U.S. AID worker, Alan Gross, who has been in prison there for five years (See the later blog post, "Good News from Cuba.")

With Ebola and ISIS uncontained, it is well to look around the world and derive hope from other difficult situations that have been resolved in the past. For a reminder of some of these past victories, see the earlier blog post, "Hope for the Future."