China becomes the world's third largest donor of food

[DoYouEverWonder]

July 20, 2006
The Guardian

After 26 years of receiving food aid, China has emerged as the world's third largest food donor, according to a report released today by the UN's World Food Programme (WFP).

China donated 577,000 tonnes of food to more than a dozen countries around the world in 2005, with the great majority sent across the border by rail to North Korea, which relies on food aid to feed its poverty-stricken rural population.

The report's findings, which track all international food donations, underline China's growing economic and political clout in Asia, and show how far the country has come since the great famines of the late 1950s killed an estimated 30 million peasants.

For the first time since 1979, China will not receive any food aid itself from the WFP this year, under an agreement reached five years ago to phase out donations to the world's most populous nation.

China's food aid soared by 260% compared to 2004, accounting for more than half of the rise in overall food aid donations in 2005. For the past few years, WFP and other countries have steadily cut donations to North Korea.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1824493,00.html

[Vidar]

1. Good for China.

[barb162]

2. But one bad harvest, and I bet they'll be back getting aid.

Too many people and too little arable land. (They're rich enoiugh now to buy food rather than get it from WFP IMHO)

[-..__...]

3. Which countires are the number 1 and 2 donors?

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. I would assume the US

not sure who the other country would be?

[robcon]

5. The technological change in China's agriculture is wonderful

They are feeding their country despite the enormous movement of people from farms to the cities, as China has industrialized.

It's the model for third world countries to industrialize.