India: A hungry nation proudly exports food

Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar is visibly excited. Agricultural exports have jumped nearly 56 per cent in 2011-12 to hit a record Rs 187,000-crore. With the government lifting the four-year-old ban on the exports of non-basmati and basmati rice, eight million tonnes of foodgrains were exported thereby swelling agricultural exports. In the process, India has now become the biggest exporter of rice in the world. 

This year, 2012-13, Sharad Pawar is hopeful of an upswing in export of basmati and non-basmati rice to hit an all-time high of 9 million tonnes. To ease stocks, the government has also allowed export of two million tonne of wheat in July, and has set up an expert committee to further examine the issue. No wonder, the Minister is now promising to introduce a long-term export-import policy. “Government is actively considering free exports and imports of agricultural commodities,” he told an economic editors conference at New Delhi recently. 

Either he is oblivious of the repeated UN warnings of global food prices spiralling once again or remains defiant to hand over country’s hard-earned food security to market forces that he continues to argue in favour of freeing food imports of all controls. International prices for wheat have already risen by 25 per cent in 2012, maize by 13 per cent and dairy prices rose 7 per cent in September, warns UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. “It means that food supplies are tight across board and there is little room for unexpected events.”

In such a grim situation, and considering that FAO has placed India among the high risk countries – which may be susceptible to famine and social unrest stemming from food shortages and price fluctuation – along with Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Yemen, any tinkering with food import-export policies is likely to be disastrous. My worry stems from the pathetic record in addressing the growing concerns of food insecurity and malnutrition that prevails, and that too at a time when the grain silos are overflowing.  

The day Sharad Pawar was brimming with excitement over possibilities of enhancing food exports, three UN organisations – Food and Agricultural Organisation, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the World Food programme -- came out with its annual State for Food Insecurity report. Accordingly, with 217 million malnourished people, India tops the malnourishment chart. As far as child nutrition is concerned, India is placed at the bottom of the global chart. 

It is a strange paradox of plenty. While on the one hand India is pushing its agricultural exports, on the other nearly 320 million people go to bed hungry. The number of hungry and malnourished in India almost equals the entire population of America. When it comes to malnutrition, several studies have pointed out that nearly 43.5 per cent of children under five are underweight. India fares worst than even sub-Saharan Africa. According to the 2011 Global Hunger Index India ranks 67 among 81 countries, sliding below Rwanda.The 2012 Global Hunger Index prepared by the International Food Policy Research Institute. Welt Hunger Hilfe and Concern Worldwide have ranked India 65^thamong 79 countries. India’s ranking in the hunger chart therefore sees no change between 2011 and 2012. 

With the per capita availability of foodgrains – including cereals and pulses – sliding to 441 grams per day in 2010, from a high of 480 grams in 1991 when economic reforms began, it is quite evident that hunger is actually growing. Although an impression is being given that as incomes are seeing a rising trend, more people have shifted from cereals to nutritious foods like eggs, meat and fruits. This is however not correct. According to a 2010 report of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), the consumption of cereals as well as nutritious foods like fruits, milk and eggs too is falling in urban and rural areas. Despite the rapid economic growth, per capita calorie consumption is steadily on the decline. The 2007 NSSO too had pointed to the same trend in falling consumption of both cereals as well as nutritious products.  

Continuously rising food inflation over the past several years has certainly widened the gap between the haves and have-nots. Experts agree that for a large section of the population, buying two square meals a day is now becoming more difficult. Several studies have pointed to the growing inability of a majority of households to the per capita calories consumption of 2,100 in urban and 2,400 in rural areas. It means most people are unable to meet the minimum nutritional requirements. 

In other words, hunger is becoming more acute and visible. More and more people are going to bed hungry. I therefore don’t understand the logic of exporting food at a time when millions are living in hunger. The mounting food surplus is essentially because the poor and needy are unable to buy foodgrains even at below the poverty line prices. Opening up the export of wheat (it is banned at present) India will certainly join the ranks of the major food exporters, and in the process earn some foreign exchange. But the bigger question remains as to who will feed the hungry living within the country? 

There can be nothing more criminal for any hungry nation to export its staple food. It is the primary responsibility of the government, as enshrined in the Directive Principles, to ensure that every citizen is well-fed. Unfortunately what is not being realised is the declining fall in per capita availability of foodgrains matches the availability at the time of Bengal famine in 1943. Isn’t it sad that even after 70 years of Bengal famine, we still live in the shadow of hunger and starvation? How can any sensible nation therefore justify food exports? 

Food management essentially means distributing the available foodgrains among the poor and hungry. A beginning must be made by immediately stopping the export of staple foods, and simultaneously launch all out effort to reach foodgrains at the doors of the hungry millions. #

The hidden nexus: food, health and insurance industry

The other day, travelling from Chandigarhto New Delhi I stopped to meet some farmers on the way. Sitting under a mango tree a little outside Ambala, I heard Rajender Dahiya, a small farmer; tell me proudly of his visit to an upstream coffee house. “I spent Rs 160 for a cup of coffee. I really enjoyed it.” He didn’t stop here. “I intend to take my wife also to the coffee shop one of these days,” he said, adding ‘I love the taste.”

I can understand how difficult it must be for Rajender Dahiya to shell out Rs 160 for a cup of coffee, which at home may not cost him more than Rs 10. But then, such is the power of marketing blitz that none of us can escape its fury. Agribusiness knows how to tickle our taste buds, and thereby turn us into addicts: beautiful packaging and aggressive marketing skills dictating new developing food habits; ending up by literally force feeding us with what the industry wants us to be fed with; and by the time we realise it our traditional local and nutritious foods are out of our plate.   

Changing food habits have brought the entire food system – from farm to the fork – under a monopolistic industrial food system.

I am therefore not surprised to find food movement in the United States – comprising NGOs, community groups and family farmers – joining the non-violent Occupy Wall Street protesters. As the American activist Eric Holt Gimenez says in his essay ‘Occupy the Food system’ the relationship between hunger, lifestyle diseases and the unchecked power of the Wall Street investors and corporations runs deep and strong. The urgent need is to connect the dots. Let me try.

The connection is however clearly visible. “Big US companies lobbying hard to enter India,” screams a headline. The large US-based multinationals queuing up to grab a pie of India’s robust economic growth includes Wal-Mart Stores, Starbucks and financial services majors Morgan Stanley. Some other technology giants like Pfizer, Dow Chemicals, and telecom major AT&T are seeking support to further strengthen their Indian businesses. Already some food majors, being driven out of America because of the campaign launched against growing obesity among children by the US first lady Michelle Obama, have recently made massive investments in food business in India.   

All this is happening at a time when India had laid out a red carpet for food processing. Planning Commission had provided for Rs 1.50 lakh crore for the food processing industry in the 10th and 11th Plan periods. Massive subsidy is being doled out for setting up food processing units. If you have Rs 50,000 in your pocket and don’t know what to do with it, says a radio advertisement, just meet your banker and explore the possibility of setting up a processing unit.

The backward linkages do not end here. The Ministry of Food and Agriculture has been facilitating the process by amending and suitably modifying the national policies to suit industry interests. Massive subsidy is being poured in for the supply of hybrid seeds, farm equipment, chemical inputs and farm credit. This in reality is the ‘farm to the fork model’ wherein the government extends all help in rooting the industrial food systems. The banks, seed technology firms, manufacturing units, and the retail sector join in to propose cropping patterns, which the farmers are expected to adopt. Scientists also step in by repeatedly bemoaning that only 2 per cent of Indian foods are processed. Not telling that in the US, from where the industrial push comes from, ‘junk foods’ are being blamed for turning food into a killer. More than 4 lakh people die every year in America alone from obesity and its related ailments.

It all began with the advent of Green Revolution some 4 decades back. Agricultural research, farm policies, credit supply, subsidies and technology was woven in to promote high-yielding crop varieties which responded well to chemical fertilisers and pesticides. Since then, technology has come along with a financial package that lures farmers to shift to newer cropping patterns. Over the years, huge subsidy has been doled out to make chemical fertilisers more popular. But no subsidy has been given to organic manures, composting and green manure crops thereby making them economically redundant.

I have always wondered why the banks provided easy credit for exotic and cross-bred cattle breeds whereas no support came for the desi cows. More than 40 years after the White Revolution was ushered in, the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) has now realised the potential of the desibreeds of cows. It is now planning for a massive investment in developing improved pedigree bulls of desibreeds so as to shift the cattle breeding focus to improving the performance of native breeds. If only a corresponding subsidy and financial support was provided for building and improving the native breeds, millions of cows would not have been roaming on the streets. 

Similarly, the food processing industry banking on some of the big players has through a sustained campaign shifted the food habits to meet the industrial needs. White polished rice for instance replaced the highly nutritious red and parboiled rice. White sugar replaced brown sugar. Both these industrial products are now being faulted for the growing incidence of diabetes and other lifestyle diseases. But with the entry of big US food giants into India, the effort will be to wean away gullible consumers to more delectable food choices. In the US for instance, an average Wal-Mart store stocks more than 40,000 food products on its shelves, and no wonder the country is faced with a health epidemic.

The more the sale of unhealthy processed foods, the more is the gain to the economy. The more the processed and nutritionally poor products are sold, the more is the growth of medicines, wellness and thereby an upswing in the visits to hospitals. In other words, the growth of pharmaceutical industry is directly dependent upon the performance of the food industry. And more the pharmaceutical industry grows; the bigger is the share of health insurance industry in the economic pie. The future of food, health and insurance industry therefore are interlinked. Not surprising therefore to find the insurance sector in the USinvesting $ 2 billion every year in the food sector. The reason is obvious. The more the contaminated food, more is the gain for the insurance sector.

The rules and institutions governing food supply favour its monopoly control by corporations. World Bank/IMF, World Trade Organisation, Free Trade Agreements, and Wall Street define the regulations. The challenge is to delink food from the Wall Street. This can be achieved by building up sustainable alternatives, and also by reverting back to daily cooking and encouraging a healthy lifestyle. At a time when the world is once again at the doorstep of an impending food crisis, and with lifestyle diseases growing out of proportion, the time is ripe to bring about a change in food habits and more importantly the thinking that goes in restoring the pride in traditional foods and the natural farming system. The 99 per cent must wake up to the threat to their food. #   

  

No need for panic on the food production front

The world is almost at the edge. With each passing day, global warming is taking the world closer to a tripping point. There is a looming crisis of sustainability, and equally importantly crisis of feeding the world. So whenever I start reading an article on the emerging food crisis I look forward to something stimulating and sensible enough. I search for some sensible solutions or at least some pointers to take the discussion forward in a meaningful way. But more often than not, I end up utterly disappointed.

Half-way through the article "How we engineered the food crisis" (The Guardian, March 20, 2011), I felt upset. Henry Miller goes on to rant and chant about the virtues of GM crops saying that GM technology provides a tool in the hands of plant breeders to make crops do spectacular new things. I thought he would probably end there, but no he goes to the extent of quoting the GM lobbyist Nina Fedoroff who is now the advisor to Hillary Clinton on GM crops. In essence, the article makes a strong plea to do everything wrong the world can do when it comes to agriculture.

I moved on to the comments section. I was overwhelmed by strong reactions to the article. Reader after reader felt outraged, and came down heavily on the writer. It is there that I learnt that Henry Miller is an employee of the Hoover Institute, which is funded among others by ADM. One letter (with a pseudo name) that caught my eye, and which I would like to share with you, says it all and so correctly:

"Any article talking about food, and whether there is enough grown, or population size, and how many people is too much, that does not mention how much food is grown right now (in the world), how many calories per person of food is grown in the world how much food is projected to be grown over the next few years, is useless and disingenuous. It is notable that the people who argue for more growth of food, or less population, NEVER ever want to address this basic issue."

Yes, that is the catch. There is no shortage of food in the world. We already produce food for 11.5 billion people. In 2050, the world is only expected to have 9 billion people. Which means there is nothing to panic. Even with our present production levels, we can still feed the population by the turn of this century. In terms of calories, although the FAO underestimates global hunger by deliberately lowering the per capita calories consumption norms to 1770 kcal, what is available today is enough to meet the per capita requirement of 4600 kcal.

Panic is in reality being created by the GM industry. They need to sell their unwanted and risky technology, and there are a whole lot of food experts/writers who are willing to oblige these companies. Ministers, bureaucrats, economists and agricultural scientists willingly join the chorus. But you as a reader do not have to fall in the trap. You need to know the facts. You can stand up and question.

Don't forget. The challenge today is how to equitably distribute the abundant food that the world produces. For a population of 6.7 billion on this planet, what we produce is enough to feed double this population. The problem is that one part of the world eats more and the other half is left hungry. No one wants to bridge this gap between the over-fed and the under-fed. Your voice can make the difference.

If you still feel like reading Henry Miller's article, here it is: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/mar/20/food-farming

Stupid Economics: Blaming the poor and hungry for food inflation

Obsessed with the growth figures, the planners have tried but failed to hide the ugly underbelly of India’s economic growth.

Montek Singh Ahluwalia has been at the helm of India’s planning process for quite some time now. It is during his tenure as the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission that India has been pushed deeper and deeper into the quagmire of poverty. With the largest population of hungry in the world, the Global Hunger Index 2010 has placed India in the pit.

I wasn’t therefore shocked when I read Ahluwalia blame the hungry for the rise in food inflation. From someone who literally lives in the ivory tower of the Yojana Bhawan, anything can be expected. But what, of course, surprised me was the audacity with which he blamed the poor and hungry in the rural countryside for the rising inflation. Although I hate to say but there can be nothing more stupid than blaming the poor in the villages as if they have started eating more and therefore the pressure on food prices.

A few years back, former US President George Bush had made that ignominious remark shifting the blame for the 2007 global food crisis to the hungry Indians. He had said that the food crisis was because the Indians had started eating more. In an interview, I had then replied that if Indians started eating as much as the Americans do, then probably the world would need to grow food crops on the moon.

While one can ignore what George Bush had said, how can one pardon the head of India’s planning process who should know much better. It also reflects on the disconnect India’s Planning Commission has with the existing ground realities. Obsessed with the growth figures that continue to be tossed around with much fanfare, the planners have tried but failed to hide the ugly underbelly of India’s economic growth.

Only a few weeks back, India was ranked 67th among 84 hungry countries of the world. Two years back, in 2008, the Global Hunger Index had placed India at 66th position among 88 countries. In other words, India had slipped still lower down the pit in the past two years. I can’t fathom how the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) had placed India in such a low esteem if the poor in the villages had started eating more.

Take another international report that was submitted by the Save the Children Fund just a few days prior to the UN Summit on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that was held in the last week of September in New York. With over 5,000 children succumbing to malnutrition every day, India had once again topped the global ranking. This shocking disclosure is enough to put every Indian to shame. I wonder how the head of Indian Planning Commission can even walk with his head held high.

Let me also draw your attention to the 2006-07 report of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) which brings out the stark truth. It tells us that the correlation between hunger and economic growth is robustly positive -- more the economic growth, more people go to bed hungry. This challenges the widely held view that economic growth pulls poor out of poverty and hunger.

What makes the alarming situation still worse is that ever since economic liberalisation was launched in 1991, the NSSO tells us that cereal consumption has been on a steady decline, with no corresponding increase in the intake of more nutritious eggs, vegetables, fruits and milk. It means hunger has been on a rise and is now more widespread and well-entrenched. So far the feeling was that with the changing food habits, people have shifted from cereals to nutritious foods like fruits, vegetables and milk. This assumption too does not hold true anymore.

Cereal consumption

The decline in cereal consumption has more or less followed a steady pattern in the rural and urban areas, and of course, much faster in the rural areas. I don’t think Ahluwalia ever read this report. Accordingly, per capita cereal consumption per month in the rural areas across the country has fallen from 13.4 kg in 1993-94 to 11.7 kg in 2006-07.

The decline has been sharper between the period 2004 and 2007 when just in three years, cereals consumption fell from 12.1 kg to 11.7 kg. In the urban centres the decline was from 10.6 kg in 1993-94 to 9.6 kg in 2006-07. In a largely vegetarian society, cereals constitute the single important source of nutrition and therefore its importance in the Indian context is well established.

This is still not the real picture. The NSSO survey does not cover the period 2007-08 when the world was faced with an unprecedented rise on global food prices. In any case, the average household expenditure on food shows an increasing trend, but does not translate into more food consumption. It only means food prices have been on an upswing, and the poor are finding it difficult to fill their bellies. The recent price rise had made it still more difficult for the poor to be well fed. Cereal consumption therefore is expected to fall still further in 2009-10, and the impact it must have had on the poor and hungry can be well imagined.

Source: Deccan Herald, Oct 28, 2010
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/108143/ahluwalias-sermons.html

For once, Obama administration is right. Offshore outsourcing of jobs must stop.

This is a good beginning. I am talking of the US State of Ohio's ban on offshoring of information technology (IT) projects. The Indian IT industry has to cry foul after Ohio order, but I strongly feel it does not make any economic sense for any country to allow foreign companies to profit by taking away local jobs.

I know it hurts young Indians whose sole aspiration is to make more money, but remember just like you are feeling hurt there are millions in America who are depressed because they have lost their job for no fault of theirs. You can call it as a fall out of recession -- recession is when someone else loses his/her job -- but tell me if I am wrong that the jobless Americans are faced not with recession, but depression --depression happens when you lose your job.     

The Hindustan Times (Sept 9, 2010) says: The Ohio government's decision comes shortly after the US Senate last month approved a hefty rise in IT-related visa fees. US accounts for 61 per cent of India's $ 37 billion (nearly Rs 1.74 lakh crore) IT exports." According to the Economic Times (Sept 9, 2010) the Indian government has lodged a formal protest with the US Trade Representative, saying Ohio governor Ted Strickland's decision violates the commitment made by G-20 countries to fight protectionism.

With the US unemployment rate nearing 10 per cent, the Obama administration is perfectly right in banning outsourcing of jobs. The Obama administration must ensure that other States also adopt similar measures.

In agriculture, where a majority of the population finds gainful employment, globalisation is slowly but steadily taking away their livelihoods. We justify this in the name of 'comparative advantage' simply because it is not our livelihood that is at the chopping block. At the same time, while the production capacity is being destroyed by shifting the focus on industrialisation, many countries are buying lands in Africa, Asia and Latin America to produce food to be shipped back home.

When the Africa and Latin American countries are themselves putting their land on sale inviting prospective buyers, I am happy that at least one country is now beginning to understand the mistake it made. Reports say Brazil’s president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has put the brakes on a wave of foreign investment in the country’s farmland, estimated by Brazil’s central bank at $2.4 billion between 2002 and 2008, by approving a rule that restricts the ownership by foreigners.

Well, I am not sure whether this is simply a pre-election posturing before the October elections, or a real move to cancel all farmland acquisitions since 1988. The same is being said about Obama administration's move to ban outsourcing, with many terming it as "electoral rhetoric" considering that Congressional elections are due in November.

If it turns out be only an 'election rhetoric', it will be a sad reflection on the lack of Statesmanship among today's political leadership. It requires courage of conviction to stand up against the violent economics that the growth paradigm actually entails.

Like in the case of the IT industry, where it is now possible to find cheaper technical manpower to replace the little expensive domestic skilled labour force that serves the Service sector, globalization means that food companies can also shop around, and source cheaper food from places like India, Malawi or the Philippines. As a result of which fewer farmers can find industrial buyers willing to pay them as much as it costs to produce fruit, vegetables, milk and meat. This happened in Europe, and if you have read one of my earlier blogs on how the beautiful farms in India and France are dying (http://devinder-sharma.blogspot.com/2010/07/france-and-india-beautiful-farms-are.htmlFSome) you will get a sense of what I mean. Accordingly, French farmers prefer to give their produce away - or dump it in protest. For many, the choice is now a stark one: find some new way to make ends meet, or risk being a victim to a farm sector that's at the verge of a collapse.

It didn't happen only in France. World over, farmers are being squeezed out of farming. I call this as The Great Trade Robbery (http://www.indiatogether.org/2003/sep/dsh-robbery.htm).

This has to change. Every country needs to become food self-sufficient, and every country must be able to find or create employment for its people. I know it is not going to be easy, because the global media, the mainline economists and the corporate lobbyists are likely to create a fear in the minds of the people (as well as political leaders) of the impending down slide in economic growth. I only hope President Obama stands his ground and does not care even if the Republicans (and the economists) think that he is behaving like a dog.

I also hope that the G-20 learns a lesson or two from President Obama.

Michelle Obama Can Lead a Global Movement for Organic Food

By Devinder Sharma
Huffington Post

When Michelle Obama laid out an organic garden in the White House, and that was in March 2009, I must admit I was very excited. I thought the U.S. first lady, drawing from what Mahatma Gandhi had once said, was trying to be the change that she wanted the United States to be. "I want to make sure that our family, as well as the staff and all people who come to the White House and eat our food, get access to really fresh vegetables and fruits," she was quoted in a news agency report.

My excitement was, however, short-lived. Unmindful of the initiative the First Lady had taken to provide safe food, President Barack Obama appointed Michael Taylor, a lawyer by training and a former Vice-President of Monsanto, to oversee food safety. Now don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Michael Taylor, but considering his background -- he is known to be the person behind the unwanted introduction of bovine growth hormone in dairy milk -- I wasn't expecting the U.S. President to be so taken in by the industry propaganda.

Knowing that the U.S. population is bulging at the extreme, and aware of the epidemic of obesity and diabetes that sweeps the world's lone superpower, I am sure you will agree that it desperately needs a healing touch, a semblance of which was provided by Michelle Obama. Never before was the need so great as it is today. An environmentally devastating food production system, sustained artificially by the power of massive farm subsidies, has not only played havoc with human health and pushed farmers out of agriculture, but also exacerbated global temperatures. Instead of rectifying the folly, the multi-billion dollar food industry is using all legal routes to strengthen its control over the global food supply chain.

After passing The Food Safety Enhancement Act (HR 2749) in July last year, the Senate is deliberating on The Food Safety Modernization Act (S 510), which many believe will allow the multinationals to tighten control over food supply and even outlaw organic food production. What makes it draconian is the provision that does not allow its decisions open to any form of judicial review. Already, consumer groups, farmer organizations and health activists are questioning the need for such a draconian law that takes away the democratic and fundamental rights of the people.

Far away in India, a similar Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) Bill is likely to be introduced in Parliament, which when enacted will take away the right of the people to question what is being served in the name of GM foods. Anyone who critiques the veracity of claims that the biotech industry makes can be imprisoned and fined. Strange isn't it that in the world's two biggest democracies, the food industry should manage to gag freedom of speech and expression? How can the democratically-elected governments -- in the U.S. and in India -- facilitate an undemocratic control over food supply, and that too in the name of food safety?

We are what we eat. It is because what we eat is highly unsafe and unhealthy that the health industry has grown out of proportion. The growth of the pharmaceutical industry is directly linked to the contaminated food that laces the markets. The pharmaceutical industry in turn backs on an emerging health insurance industry. No wonder, the insurance industry is now investing heavily in food stocks, knowing well that its growth is directly proportionate to the junk foods that we are forced to consume.
Food is, in fact, fast-emerging as a killer. And as my doctor told me the other day: "We have learned the art of keeping a sick population alive for long." How true?

Read the full article at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/devinder-sharma/michelle-obama-can-lead-a_b_568741.html

Square watermelons! You must be crazy!!

Square watermelons! Don't be surprised to find them soon in the store near you.

Next summer, or may be even at the fag end of this summer, you might find square watermelons in the supermarket stores. Well, don't be surprised. A Panama-based company has already started producing and marketing the square watermelons. The first shipment is off to New York, the Big Apple.

It is not genetically-modified. As the news report below clarifies, these water melons have been literally 'molded' to make it convenient for shipping. I don't know why, but the world seems to be un-necessarily experimenting with food, trying to carve out an exclusive space in the market. I am completely at easy with the rounded variety that I find with my neighbourhood vendor. It is cheap, sweet, and juicy. I love it.

I hope many of you have the sanity to avoid the tyranny of the markets. These food companies only want you to shell out more in the name of novelty.

Here is the AP news report.

ANTON, Panama (AP) -- A company in Panama is hoping to join in a small niche market of the fruit export business: square watermelons.

The Panama Fruit Producer company has started "rounding up" the square fruit, sending its first shipment of 120 boxy melons to New York.

The company expects to produce about 3,000 of the molded melons this year, and will send them to the Netherlands and Germany as well.

Operations manager Gerardo Diaz said Wednesday that people are surprised at first because "it is not what they were expecting."

"Later they ask if it is a genetic experiment," he said.

Diaz said the watermelons are natural. They are made to grow inside cube-shaped glass boxes and conform to the mold as they get bigger.

The first melons cost about $75 apiece, but producers hope to bring the price down.

The first square watermelons are thought to have been produced by a Japanese farmer and have been sold in some markets in Japan for years. Diaz said the only square watermelon production in the Americas he knows about is in Brazil and California in the US.