Corn production in the US since 1940 has quadrupled. It is expected to double once again by 2020!

There are farmers in the US that are being paid by government agencies NOT to cultivate certain portions of land.

Iowa, the largest corn producing state in the US is just getting ready for a bumper crop of Corn this harvest season.

There is an abundance of grain, atleast in the USA, enough to cover food and fuel requirements.

The US provides Federal tax dollars of $5 Billion per year to Gasoline refiners to make ethanol from Corn

The US also slaps a $0.54 import tariff on sugar based ethanol

Ethanol production has increased 20% in the past year to 11 Billion gallons.

The increased use of Corn for making ethanol caused several US farmers to switch to raising corn from Wheat and Soybean

This has caused increases in the price of Wheat and Soybean

Overall food prices have increased worldwide, sub Saharan Africa is the worst hit by the food price increases

Over a billion people in the poorest of poor nations are going hungry, global climate change is not making things any easier

Download and listen to a Podcast featuring Jeff Broin, CEO of POET one of the leading Cellulosic Ethanol making companies for more info…http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2009/09/will-the-rough-patch-continue-for-ethanol

Here is some additional reading on the subject – http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/energy/6626262.html

Picture Credit: Fishfoot

Waiting for your flight to board

Recently I was sitting at Bangalore Airport waiting for my Flight to board. There I was minding my own business. I hear an announcement encouraging a passenger (lets call him Ramesh for this purpose) to board a certain flight immediately, they are about to close the gate…. Blah…Blah….Blah. The same announcement was done in English, Hindi and Kannada (the local language). Some of you may not find anything unusual about this, but in the space of about 7 minutes the announcement was repeated another 2 times (each time in 3 languages) for this Ramesh to show up.

Having traveled the globe extensively, I can just about bet my last buck that this practice will not be adopted in other countries. Passengers are expected to turn up 10 minutes before departure or risk missing the flight. Plain and simple. Atleast this is what I have been led to believe.

Do we coddle our passengers too much in India? Do we treat them like little children that need to be reminded constantly what they need to do?

OR………

Perhaps Mr. Ramesh’s bags are already loaded on the plane. In the brave new world we live in… planes cannot fly with unaccompanied baggage. So for the airline, it is a lot easier to remind, cajole, coax, plead, beg Mr. Ramesh to board the plane than to deny him boarding and have to spend another 15 minutes sorting through the baggage compartment to offload Ramesh’s bags? While at the same time risking holding up and upsetting a plane load of passengers that have responsibly boarded on time.

OR……….

This scenario probably applies well to India… Mr. Ramesh is a VVIP and closing the gates in his face and denying him boarding perhaps will not win the Airline any favors with who he knows.

Whatever the reason, it sure is paaaaaaaaaaaaaainful to sit in the airport listening to these stupid announcements over and over again.

• There are prisoners that have been on death row in excess of 40 years!
• Most prisoners on death row are informed of their hanging only on the morning of the day it is scheduled
• Almost always death row prisoners are in solitary confinement
• To make matters worse, they are not allowed to make eye contact with their guards
• Most prisoners become mentally ill as they cannot handle such extreme isolation
• They are put to death by hanging. Majority of them are mental patients when they are hung.

For more information please look up http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/10/japan-death-row-insane-amnesty

Have we as human beings sunk so low that we subject each other to such poor treatment?

Or do we say they are on death row for a good reason. Assuming that it was a proper conviction, humane treatment should not be expected?

1. If you have dragged your wife off to towns which no one in their right mind would consider a “tourist destination” because you are motivated by (a) guilt at not spending enough time at home and (b) the hotel room is paid for any way.
2. 9 out of the last 10 movies you have seen were on long distance flights
3. You no longer need to look up your Passport to fill out Immigration forms for the number, issue and expiry dates.
4. Every time you have to put loose change in your pocket, you stop to think if you have to pass through any Security metal detectors.
5. Your Toiletry case has items from several countries in it.
6. You can never buy anything because there is always another country you know of where it is available for a lot cheaper!
7. Your top consideration in selecting a Laptop computer is not RAM or Hard Disk space but how it will feel on your shoulder hauling it through multiple airports.
8. You cannot remember the last time you actually spent money to buy a toothbrush, because you are using the ones you nicked from hotels or flights.
9. As you drive out of an airport in a new location, you automatically look for a Gas Station to fill up the rental car when you return.
10. The In Flight movie turns out to be a “repeat” because you have already seen on a previous flight.

Picture Credit: RedMeg8

SILK Organic soymilk products

Everyone who touches the stream of revenue must be doing good for society

After his return to the USA, Steve Demos started White Wave Tofu in 1977. Tofu, is a soft, bland, custard like food made from crushed soybeans and was intended as a meat substitute. After being in business with marginal success for almost 2 decades Steve came up with a gold mine of an idea in SILK – a fresh soymilk product made entirely from organically grown soybeans, sold in freshness dated, refrigerated cartons that resembled the more common dairy milk. The rationale behind this was that Steve wanted to come up a product that would require no customer education. Tofu, even after nearly 2 decades of customer education, had questionable success in its acceptance as a meat substitute.

In 1997, soon after the launch of SILK, White Wave sales rose 37%, from $6 to $8.2 million. Within a few years, after FDA and others started touting the benefits of soy products, sales shot up to $180 million by 2002. Not long after a deal was struck with Starbucks in 2003 to complement their espresso and chai drinks. In 1998 Dean Foods, Inc. the second largest dairy in the USA purchased a minority share in White Wave. Imagine, one of the leaders in Dairy products buying a stake in a direct competitor! Soy milk, by the way, is a wonderful and healthier alternative to dairy milk and the only choice for people that are ‘lactose intolerant’.

In 2002 White Wave was sold to Dean Foods, Inc. in a highly publicized $295 million transaction at a time when it had 150 employees, of whom 100 had worked for the company for more than 2 years. In keeping with the ‘Golden Rule’ that Steve Demos had laid out for himself in business, he refused to sell the company unless every employee who had been with the company more than 2 years received something from the sale. The lawyers were astounded by Steve’s request. It took them 3 months to work out the legal mechanics, which could have jeopardized the sale of the company. At the end, $15 million of the sale price was handed out to about 100 people. One, Pete a truck driver, received almost $400,000. There was no legal obligation to do this, but Steve Demos just took pleasure in handing out checks to his employees as proceeds of the sale.

Feel free to read ‘The new Wellness Revolution’ by the famous economist Paul Zane Pilzer where he has covered this story in much greater detail. (around page 90)

After the sale, Steve was asked to stay on at Dean Foods as President of the refrigerated products division with sales of $1.2 Billion and continued to serve on the Board of the company.

Now, if this story warms the cockles of your heart, it is meant to. But don’t get used to that feeling.

White Wave started out with the Soy Milk (SILK) product by buying organic soybeans from local farmers in the USA. Recently however, Dean Foods, Inc., has completely abandoned its support of domestic organic farmers and gone to China for cheaper soy products. The US domestic farmers essentially have had a gun placed to their heads and asked to match the Chinese prices for Soy or  lose the business.

I wish I could have left you feeling all nice and good, but unfortunately this is the end.

Recycled Shopping Bags - the new cool

me) have gotten so used to plastic bags that the question does not even come up anymore. Here are some present day considerations on the subject…

• Seattle, WA  is voting in August on a 20 cent tax (?) on customers that dont bring their own bags
• BYOB – The new expansion for this is Bring Your Own Bag. There is a ‘coolness’ factor to this now.
• Many people claim that they have their own bags in the car, but 80% of the time they forget to take it into the store with them
• There is the argument that plastic bags are 2% of the problem, the bigger problem is how the stuff we buy are packaged and how we need to minimize plastic content in that.
• Cant deny the environmental damage caused by plastic bags blowing around and besides being an eyesore, being consumed by animals
  

  No words required

  
  

• But hey, wait a minute. How else are we going to dispose of dog poop, and line the garbage bin in the bathroom?
• If Grocery stores stop using Plastic bags, wont we simply buy bags for Trash cans anyway?

Picture Credit: Maranda Brooke

I belong to the LinkedIn Professional network that claims over 40 million users worldwide. I continue to be amazed at the number of invites I get from people (several of them complete strangers) that merely send the standard computer generated invite…

I’d like to add you to my Professional network on LinkedIn

When someone is trying to connect with me, I usually like to see a few sentences on why that person thinks that this will be a good ‘connection’. Something personal about them and their background goes a long way towards ensuring that the invitation is taken seriously.

The vast majority of the people that send ‘computerized invites’, that I connect with, I never hear back from later. In general, I believe in establishing ‘connections‘ and I am not into collecting Souveneirs or Trophies. If my LinkedIn account has more than 500 connections and I dont recognize any of the names on it what good is it to me or to them?

Connection not Collection

Question: Do you think there is a limit to the number of people you can effectively ‘connect’ with before it starts getting to be a mere collection? What do you think that threshold number is?

Picture Credit: Prudence & Sesame Ellis

See that bus waiting to take you to the Terminal?

But after the plane comes to a stop you look out the window and see an airport bus waiting outside to take you the terminal, I am not sure what the mad dash rush is to get out of the plane. People act like they have ‘ants in their pants’ and get up and open the overhead bins, bring down their luggage and stand around for the next 5-10 minutes waiting for them to open the doors and for passengers to start walking out.

Now there is no rush to take that stuff down

It does not matter if you are the last one out of the plane folks, that bus is not going to leave until the plane has been emptied out. In fact, in this case, the last one out of the plane can often be the first one out of the bus. So r..e..l..a..x, watch everyone else huff and puff and push past you, get out in a calm cool manner. You will still get there at the same time!

You will get a lot more points by being patient and allowing all the pushy ones on the plane to be the first ones on that bus!

Picture Credits: Jeanne & Belinda Lee

There seems to be a fine line between 'service' and 'disturbance'

in Bangalore. They had gone a little overboard in the number of ‘staff’ they had hired to the extent that it was hard to push the shopping cart in the aisles. Every few feet there was a Store staff person standing around.

My wife approached the refrigerated section. She was eyeing something in one of the cupboards that she wanted to get to. At this point one of the ubiquitous staff person asks her

Staff Person: May I help you Madam?

My wife: Yes, you can help me by getting out of my way, so I can get in that cupboard behind you!!!

The clash of cultures between the ruggedly independent Americans and the Indian culture where people are happy to have help with just about anything was too much. Apparently the staff person did not get the sarcasm that my wife threw at her and just went away thinking what a rude foreigner!

Please note: Cultures are simply different, not superior or inferior. Depending on a persons makeup, they may ‘prefer’ one culture over another. I am not making judgements on any culture in particular. The differences are what make the world an interesting place to live.

But I was traveling! I am sure you understand...

for up to a week at a time. Things will be going just fine and you may be in the midst of some important discussions or progressing on a project. Then, suddenly, whammo… no sign of someone for upto a week. After the 3-4 unanswered phone calls and a similar number of emails to check on progress, suddently people seem to resurface with the excuse that they were ‘traveling’.

In this day and age of Blackberry’s and Twitter, I am often amazed that professionals can suddenly do the disappearing act for a week, often in the midst of active projects. Business Travel is ofcourse a necessary part of our lives and wont change much into the future. Technology however has also given us tools to be able to remain in touch when we travel, to the extent we want ofcourse.

1. When you travel, do you take advantage of the change in routine to say a. read a book, b. read some magazines that you dont typically get to or c. listen to your iPOD?
2. Or when you travel do you place an “Out of Office” message on your Outlook, and make every attempt to return phone calls or emails within 24 hours?

Photo Credit: The Dread Pirate Betty