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US food aid and trade, food sovereignty, and strategies for ending hungerFood aid is not a long-term solution to hunger, nor is it a necessary component of development. But, food aid is often needed and does save lives. Not enough food aid is provided some times and places, such as Darfur right now. Too much or the wrong kind can be disastrous if badly timed shipments prevent farmers in hungry areas from selling their harvests, or when food is sent that people can't cook or digest. Does US food aid cause hunger? While food aid can put local farmers out of business in hungry countries, causing dependence and greater hunger, food aid in itself is not a major cause of hunger. But, US food aid policy does contribute to hunger insofar as it creates the impression that the US and should feed the world. This disguises a far greater cause of hunger: the US policy of promoting excess food production, driving down world prices, and forcing or dumping the US 'surplus' food in other countries. International politics of food aid Food aid, like other aid, often goes to places where donor countries have strategic interests: some countries where hunger is greatest get very little food aid - Congo, for instance. The use of food aid as a direct political weapon is becoming less common, as more of it is handled by international agencies, mainly the World Food Program (not that WFP is politics-free). The EU and some private aid agencies want to use WTO rules to restrict US food aid practices, but the WTO and 'free trade' fundamentalism is not a good framework for food-aid policy. The trend worldwide and the advice of food-aid experts is:
US food aid The US is the world's biggest food aid provider by far - about 60% of all food aid; the EU is 2nd. The US has long used food aid to channel budgetary support to favored foreign governments (who resell the food), but the share of US food aid used this way is now down to < 15%. US food aid policies are different than and worse than those of most other large aid providers mainly because US congress insists on providing food (in-kind aid) instead of funds, and because most US food aid is 'tied' to requirements such as the use of US shipping lines. The US practice of providing food instead of funds is harmful because:
The Bush administration has used food aid as one way to force other countries to accept transgenic (GMO) crops and products, most famously in Southern Africa in 2001 - 02. US domestic politics of food aid The domestic political argument for US food aid has been that:
None of these claims are true. Most of the benefits (profits) from US agro-food exports accrue to a small and shrinking group of transnational agribusiness corporations. These TNCs are shifting more of their investment into industrial agriculture in the global South, especially into animal-feed production. Farm exports have long been important to the US economy, but their importance is declining; food aid has not been important in creating new markets for US farm exports. When US AID tried to shift policy toward more cash, less in-kind food aid in 2005, US private aid agencies (big NGOs) and farm-state and agribusiness interests in congress shot it down. Emphasis on food aid as a solution to US farm problems and overseas hunger distracts needed attention from the real problems of US agriculture and the actual causes of hunger abroad. Food aid reform? Lots of energy goes into refining food aid practices to reduce corruption here and abroad, to improve speed and effectiveness of aid deliveries, etc. There's much debate about the merits of food-for-work, food aid 'targeted' to women or tied to requirements such as school attendance, food aid as a 'development' tool, giving food versus giving cash during emergencies, how to prevent food aid from disrupting markets and hurting farmers in countries where it is given, etc. If you want to know more, ask me, or read Barrett & Maxwell Food Aid After 50 Years: Recasting its Role (Routledge, 2005). Food-aid bottom line Does US food aid do more harm or more good? Some short-term good; more long-term harm. Should we oppose it? No. Call for more of it? Yes, but for un-tied, cash aid organized and delivered via multilateral agencies during emergencies such as earthquakes and crises such as that in Darfur. Should we put a lot of energy into trying to reform food aid? There are better things we can do to address hunger now and to change the US policies that help to cause hunger (see below). US farm and trade policies are causing worse hunger and environmental crisis US agriculture policy, and especially US trade policy, are doing much more to worsen hunger and poverty than are US food aid policies, misguided and inefficient as these are. Maintaining and enlarging markets for US agricultural exports, both farm products and farming inputs such as machinery, patented seeds, and agrochemicals, is a priority in US trade policy. The justification used for this is that US agriculture is the world's 'most efficient' so everybody will be better off buying US food than growing their own or trading with each other. But industrial agriculture (in which US is the world leader) is highly inefficient and damaging in its environmental and social effects. We produce more food per hour of labor but not per acre, nor per dollar spent, nor energy used. We mine the soil and poison the waters to do it. The roots of food dependence and hunger Today's dependence began with colonialism's intentional disruption of farming in the global South. Since then, anti-farming policies by aid agencies and developing-country governments have been rationalized by the claim that countries are better off (have a 'comparative advantage') if they use their land, water, and labor to produce for others. Many would-be developing countries have lost their self-sufficiency in food in recent decades. Contributing to this are:
'Dumping' - export sales at prices below cost of production - is a big reason US food can be sold in other countries for prices below what local farmers need to recoup their costs and survive.
Food aid has been a form of dumping by the US since the '50s, but it doesn't contribute to dumping as much as do the US farm and trade policies that promote cheap, subsidized food exports. The WTO applies the same 'free trade' (neo-liberal) reasoning and policies as do structural adjustment programs. The WTO Agreement on Agriculture requires further phasing-out of protections against lower-priced food imports. In theory, countries of the South are allowed to take longer to eliminate their tariffs and farm supports, but since being 'adjusted' by the IMF and World Bank, many Southern countries already have few supports or protections left. The US and the EU have shaped the WTO rules to allow themselves to maintain most of their farm protections and subsidies, and TNCs can get around the rules, so dumping continues. Agribusiness power Corporate concentration has brought the control of food-producing resources worldwide into the hands of a few giant firms involved in biotechnology, production and sales of seeds and other farm inputs, grain trade and transport, food processing, distribution, and retailing. These TNCs are the main beneficiaries of US policies, even they are global in their interests, are hurting the environment and most US farmers, and do little for the US economy. The effects: displacement of farmers, devastation of rural communities and cultures In much of Latin America, Asia, and Africa, cheap food imports and deliberate anti-farm policies are causing growing hunger, out-migration and the break-up of families, the weakening and desertion of villages, and the loss of genes, knowledge, skills, arts, and bio-cultural diversity. Exhibit A: NAFTA and the effects of 'free trade' on rural Mexico... Increased death-risking immigration North is one direct result of flooding of Mexican markets by lower-priced US corn (often transgenic and of lower quality), beans, and other foods. But campesinos are refusing to abandon their maize and are struggling to save their villages. Free trade / fair trade / trade justice Few would say that current food and other trade is 'free', since powerful governments design their policies and interpret WTO rules to favor their own agro-food industries. Oxfam and others call for 'fair' trade: for ending farm supports and protections to create a 'level playing field' in global trade and allow more access to Northern markets for Southern exports. But export-driven development alone - producing mainly for the global North - can't bring about sustainable development, given the extreme inequalities now built into the world economy. Ending farm subsidies won't solve problems of hunger, food dependence, and too-low farmers' prices: agribusiness TNCs have enough power to dominate world markets without subsidies. Ecological and social certification ('fair-trade' labels for coffee, etc.) is good but is not enough. Consumer choice, fair trade, and other market-based approaches alone can't reverse the trend toward ever-greater inequality and food dependence. Active, pro-farmer policies by governments and international agencies, and direct support for rural social movements are needed. Food sovereignty: the right to protect, the right to support, and the right to food The US is the most vigorous opponent of UN provisions and other international agreements. recognizing that people have a right to food and that farmers have rights as producers. The US government is an unrelenting opponent of policies that preserve food sovereignty; many of these policies are virtually illegal under the terms of US bilateral 'free trade' pacts. Countries and regions of the global South must be allowed to limit food imports in order to save or revive their own food-producing capacities (just as the US has always done). Countries of the South must be allowed to provide direct support for domestic food production: low-cost credit, marketing services, technical aid (with agroecology training), price supports, seed banks and crop diversity, land redistribution, etc., without trade or aid retaliation. Regions of the South must not be punished for building regional food and other trade linkages. The human right to food trumps the 'right' to trade and profit. Where we should put our resources? Rural social movements in the global South are the strongest force for ending hunger, by
There are many ways to support these promising movements:
Most of the world is not 'globalized' and need not be - there are alternatives! Economic globalization - meaning world-wide markets in food, other goods and services, and capital - is real, especially financial globalization, but globalization is often overstated. Most goods, and 90% of all food, are produced and consumed locally or in the country where they are produced. 56% of the labor force in developing countries is engaged in farming. 80% of those suffering from hunger and malnutrition live in rural areas (FAO 2001). While global food trade is growing, most food is still not traded internationally, nor should it be. Alternatives already exist in the form of rural lifeways that have not been destroyed, land and resource-rights movements, new communities and exciting experiments in sustainable and equitable farming and living, and growing global movements of farmers and their allies. The solutions to hunger and to most other problems of poverty and development lie in the regions where hunger and poverty exist. Policies that block those solutions need to be changed here in the US.
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