The Absurdity of Foreign Food Aid
- Melissa Walter
- Nov 23, 2014
- 1 min read
I need to post quickly…I still need to get to Whole Foods to buy $100 in groceries for my friend in India! She lost her job and can’t afford food. FedEx said that for $25 they can get the groceries on a boat and over to my friend in…oh, about 14 weeks. I’d better hurry. ----------- I hear you questioning my sanity. Yet this is exactly how our foreign food aid policy is designed. We spend tax dollars to fund subsidies to grow food in the US. We spend money to turn it into shelf-stable products that we can ship overseas on US boats. We spend 25-55 cents of every food aid dollar on that shipping. It takes up to 14 weeks for the food to arrive. In the meantime, people die of starvation. And when our food arrives and it is sold at below-market prices to make money for aid organizations to fund other projects, we put foreign farmers out of business and create dependence on continued aid.
Let’s listen to the aid agencies that are calling for policy reform. Tell your legislators that the US should be part of a flexible and efficient system that allows both for more food to be produced and purchased where it’s being used and for more cash grants to be provided to support local economies and meet food needs in a timely manner. Tell them you want them to spend your tax dollars wisely in order to feed 4 to 10 million more hungry people in the world.
(Want to learn more about international food aid? Read on!)
コメント