Who Does U.S. Food Aid Benefit?

[nosmokes]

More evidence that NYC phone book thick document known as the Farm Bill is a colossal waste of billions of dollars. Worse than a waste, it actually aids and abets the powers and forces that destroying and impoverishing small family farmer here in the States and and around the world while enriching the corporate bio-chem/ag model that is simply not sustainable and not economically feasible w/o the huge subsidies that are given to it.
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original-inthesetimes

Who Does U.S. Food Aid Benefit?

Current policies favor giant shipping companies and agribusinesses over the starving populations they are supposed to serve
By Megan Tady

Last month, in a move that shocked observers, CARE, one of the world’s largest humanitarian organizations, rejected $45 million in U.S. food aid, shining a spotlight on a practice the group says may hurt starving populations more than help them.

Complaining that U.S. food aid policy is inefficient, unsustainable and perhaps even detrimental to combating food insecurity, CARE belives “enough is enough,” according to Bob Bell, director for CARE’s Food Resource Coordination Team. The decision comes at a time when other humanitarian and food advocacy organizations are calling on members of Congress to rewrite food aid policy that puts starving populations first when they authorize this month’s 2007 Farm Bill.

The United States is the world’s largest provider of international food aid, supplying more than half of all food aid designated to alleviate hunger, about four million metric tons of food per year. As currently implemented, U.S. food aid lines the pockets of American agribusiness and the shipping industry. Under existing rules, at least 75 percent of food aid has to be grown and packaged in the United States, and shipped using U.S. flag-bearing vessels. Unlike most countries that donate food, the United States sells a portion of its food aid, either by selling it to recipient governments, or allowing it to be monetized, a process where food aid is sold to generate cash for development projects. And while most donor countries provide cash as food aid, the United States insists on giving in-kind donations.

Back in 2002, Richard Lee, a spokesman for the United Nation’s World Food Programme, told Greenpeace that the best way to confront famine is through cash donations, rather than food. “We prefer cash donations as they offer us greater flexibility - with cash donations we can purchase locally, enjoy greater flexibility and also speed things up,” Lee told Greenpeace. “We can get more for the money if we have cash. We can do the job faster as cash lets us buy the right food we need at the right time.”

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complete article here