Why McDonald's dropped tomatoes from Indian menus
为什么印度麦当劳门店从菜单上撤下了番茄
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.
在过去几周里，番茄这种日常食材的价格一直在急剧攀升。目前在印度某些地区，番茄的价格已升至每公斤近200卢比（约合3美元），与40-50卢比这个常见价位相比出现了极大的涨幅。
The costly tomato has wreaked havoc on wallets， in kitchens and even on the streets.
高昂的番茄价格对人们的日常支出、饮食菜单甚至是街头售卖都造成了巨大冲击。
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，麦当劳登上了新闻，原因并非新增了菜品，而是其位于印度北部和东部地区的大部分门店停止供应菜品中的番茄。该公司援引“季节性农作物生产问题”作为优质番茄短缺的原因。
The skyrocketing prices have been particularly hard on India's middle and lower classes， who make up the bulk of the population.
此次物价飞涨对于占印度人口大多数的中下层阶级打击尤为严重。
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，印度该如何应对这种供需缺口呢？一个简单直接的办法就是，将多余的农产品储存起来，以备不时之需——以及在当前情况下，应对字面意义上的“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.
另一种措施是将番茄加工成番茄酱，这样在新鲜番茄涨价时，消费者就能转而购买番茄加工食品。
“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.
农业经济学家阿肖克·古拉蒂（Ashok Gulati）表示：“总体来说，必须采用价值链法来降低蔬菜从生产到消费过程中的风险，但目前此类体系尚未成型。”