Why McDonald's dropped tomatoes from Indian menus

為什么印度麥當(dāng)勞門店從菜單上撤下了番茄

The price of the everyday staple has been climbing steeply for the past couple of weeks， and now stands at almost 200 rupees ($3) a kilo in certain parts of India - a sharp shift from the usual 40-50 rupees.

在過去幾周里，番茄這種日常食材的價格一直在急劇攀升。目前在印度某些地區(qū)，番茄的價格已升至每公斤近200盧比（約合3美元），與40-50盧比這個常見價位相比出現(xiàn)了極大的漲幅。

The costly tomato has wreaked havoc on wallets， in kitchens and even on the streets.

高昂的番茄價格對人們的日常支出、飲食菜單甚至是街頭售賣都造成了巨大沖擊。

McDonald's recently made news - not for adding a new dish - but dropping tomatoes from its menu in most of its outlets in northern and eastern India. It cited the unavailability of quality tomatoes “due to seasonal crop issues“ as the reason.

近日，麥當(dāng)勞登上了新聞，原因并非新增了菜品，而是其位于印度北部和東部地區(qū)的大部分門店停止供應(yīng)菜品中的番茄。該公司援引“季節(jié)性農(nóng)作物生產(chǎn)問題”作為優(yōu)質(zhì)番茄短缺的原因。

The skyrocketing prices have been particularly hard on India's middle and lower classes， who make up the bulk of the population.

此次物價飛漲對于占印度人口大多數(shù)的中下層階級打擊尤為嚴(yán)重。

So how does India overcome this supply-demand gap? A straightforward solution would be to just store excess produce for the proverbial - and in this case， literal - rainy day.

那么，印度該如何應(yīng)對這種供需缺口呢？一個簡單直接的辦法就是，將多余的農(nóng)產(chǎn)品儲存起來，以備不時之需——以及在當(dāng)前情況下，應(yīng)對字面意義上的“雨天之需”。

Another step is to process tomatoes into puree， which can help consumers shift to processed tomatoes when prices of fresh tomatoes are running high.

另一種措施是將番茄加工成番茄醬，這樣在新鮮番茄漲價時，消費(fèi)者就能轉(zhuǎn)而購買番茄加工食品。

“Overall， a value chain approach has to be adopted to de-risk the vegetable from production to consumption， but the framework is absent right now，“ says Ashok Gulati， farm economist.

農(nóng)業(yè)經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家阿肖克·古拉蒂（Ashok Gulati）表示：“總體來說，必須采用價值鏈法來降低蔬菜從生產(chǎn)到消費(fèi)過程中的風(fēng)險，但目前此類體系尚未成型。”