I refer to the letter Have we set our food priorities right? Nick Josh K Karean doesn't really seem to understand the way the global food trade works. Where did he read about the US importing animal feed? This is nonsense. The US imports very little in the way of animal feed as per the UN data here.

As you can see, the US produces nearly 300 million tonnes of maize, exports 55 million tonnes and imports just one million. With soy, it produces 88 million tonnes and exports 30 million tonnes and imports very little.

The US is a huge animal feed exporter. This is precisely why it forces people into free trade agreements (like that with Australia) - to get markets for its cereals. Poor countries can't compete with the US in producing animal feed because of the heavy amounts of fertiliser and cereal genetic expertise needed.

So these cereal producers are undercut and are hence unemployed and free to work for low wages in sweat shops! But Nick is 100 percent correct in saying that we need to reassess our food priorities.

We do need to increase the quality of our nutrition without animal products. As Malaysia moves to a 'western' diet, it will also, unfortunately, need more heart surgeons, more cancer specialists and so on and so forth.