B- The benefits in donor countries: promoting domestic
interests
Though their interests were similar to those of the North
American countries, European governments have never openly admitted any
economic or political interest behind their food assistance. However, the US
has always been very open about the multiple objectives assigned to its food
assistance, listed as follows by USAID:
- Combat world hunger and malnutrition and their causes;
- Promote broad-based, equitable and sustainable development,
including agricultural development;
- Expand international trade;
- Develop and expand export markets for US agricultural
commodities; - Foster and encourage the development of private enterprise and
democratic participation in developing countries.
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International food aid was initiated at a time when the policy
of price support generated large surpluses of cereals in donor countries. State
agencies purchased agricultural commodities from farmers in times of low prices
and growing surpluses. This was part of a policy geared towards the enhancement
of the whole agricultural sector in donor countries. But because surpluses
shrunk in the 1980s, food aid is now driven more by the individual interests of
a few groups and businesses rather than political objectives that favor an
entire economic sector. Food aid in the US constitutes only $1-2 billion
annually in a domestic market exceeding $900 billion. With such a modest share,
food aid is no longer the policy instrument it was initially when it resulted
from the government's price support policy. It now represents the interests of
the «privileged few with preferential access to procurement process.»
Major forces driving food aid today are specific crop lobbies, U.S. shipping
companies and NGOs and relief organizations.
The shipping industry is another major interest behind food
aid in the US; it is supported by the 1985 Farm Bill which requires that at
least 75 per cent of US food aid be shipped by US vessels. As in the case of
agribusiness, the cargo preference benefits some interests rather than the
industry as a whole, for which food aid constitutes only a tiny portion. The
same study by Barrett and Maxwell shows that just four freight forwarders
handle 84 per cent of the shipments of food aid from the US and that a few
shippers rely extensively on US food aid for their existence. They
«depend heavily on food aid business and might not be financially
viable without the massive subsidies they draw from food shipments the American
electorate thinks are donations not to shipping lines but to poor people
abroad.»34
Preference given to in-kind food produced in the US and to the
US shipping industry makes US food aid the most expensive in the world. The
premiums paid to suppliers and shippers combined with the increased cost of
34 Barret and Maxwell, Ibid, p.17.
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food aid due to lengthy international transport raise the cost
of food aid by over 100 per cent compared to local purchases. The last major
force driving food aid in donor countries relates to the vested interest of a
number of relief and development organizations active in food aid projects.
Interestingly, the only international NGOs specialized in food aid are US
based, and rely on food aid for either direct food interventions or for funding
of other activities through the monetization, or sale, of the food they receive
in the recipient country. On average, the main US based relief and development
NGOs rely on food aid for 30 per cent of their resources and more than half of
the food they receive is sold on the market in recipient countries to generate
funding for other programs. In certain countries, Chad in the 1990s for
example, food aid constitutes the main or the only resource available to NGOs.
As a result of their heavy dependence on food aid as a resource, they are
poorly inclined to question the current food aid system.
II- Negative impacts of IFA
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