Food Aid ''overhaul'' would save money and lives - Oxfam Report by Aaron Glantz, OneWorld US 12:24pm 19th Jul, 2006   Published: July 26, 2006    Despite a 46-year effort to eradicate poverty, hunger remains a problem in many parts of the world, says a new report arguing that a re-think of political priorities in the United States and elsewhere could boost efforts to get food to hungry people around the globe.    According to the report by the international humanitarian group Oxfam, 33% percent of sub-Saharan Africans are under-nourished. The number of acute food shortages there has almost tripled since the 1980s.    Reasons for increased hunger, the group says, include the spread of HIV/AIDS, war, and global warming. But, Oxfam says, the way Western governments give food aid is also to blame.    "The emergency, or ''humanitarian'', system must be overhauled," says the report, titled "Causing Hunger: An overview of the food crisis in Africa."    "The type of aid is often inappropriate," Oxfam adds, noting that 70 percent of food aid distributed by the United Nations is the product of developed countries.    Often times, the group says, African nations have enough food on hand, but local people are too poor to purchase it. Oxfam maintains that buying up local food for free distribution or handing out cash for residents to buy locally grown food would do more to combat hunger than shipping aid from overseas.    Other observers agree with Oxfam''s prescription.    "When food aid has to be shipped from the U.S. or Europe it invariably arrives late," says Anurada Mittal of the Oakland Institute. Because virtually all U.S. food aid comes from American farms, it takes an average of five months to arrive--sometimes after the famine is already over.    "If you look at the recent famine in Ethiopia the aid was a year late," Mittal adds. "They had a good harvest and then the aid came. In Malawi, the aid came almost a year later when the harvest was ready. That depressed regional prices. When cheap food aid comes in small farmers can''t compete and go bankrupt."    The European Union, Canada, and Australia have, in recent years, increased their flexibility to buy their food aid from developing countries, the report says. Canada now permits 50 percent of its food aid to be bought locally while up to 67 percent of Australian food aid is bought near the site of the emergency.    In Washington, the Bush administration has tried to change American policy surrounding food aid. Earlier this year, the U.S. Agency for International Development proposed the government earmark 25 percent of the estimated $1.2 billion it spends on food aid for local suppliers.    But Congress scuttled the plan when agribusiness giants including Minnesota-based Cargill objected. For more than 50 years U.S. food aid programs have maintained their support in Washington because Congress mandates that all food and grain be bought from U.S. farmers, packaged by U.S. exporters, and shipped on U.S.-flagged vessels.    "The agriculture industry in the U.S. sees food aid as a great way to find new markets rather than fight hunger," Mittal says.    In addition, Oxfam''s Gawain Kripke says that wealthier nations should focus less on food aid and more on helping farmers survive in the global economy.    Often, he says, Washington-backed groups like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have "disinvested in agriculture," while urging African governments to tax small farmers at a higher rate than larger, multinational corporations.    "Policy makers have been ignoring farmers," he says. "That decreases farmers'' productivity, increasing numbers of people at the margins, making them vulnerable to economic shocks, and increasing the number of food emergencies."    Kripke says policy makers are beginning to wake up to this, however. He notes as a hopeful sign the recent commitment of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, including new technology and infrastructure projects like roads to help rural people get their crops to market. Visit the related web page
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