Hungry countries need money NOT food

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This months blog is brought to you courtesy of a tweet posted by @NYUReynolds and is linked to a very interesting article http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/fixes/

This article’s title is “When Food Isn’t the Answer to Hunger”, which sparked my interest immediately. I thought to myself, “How could food not be the answer” so I impatiently read the article. I was surprise to realize that the article had several interesting and valid point. It is specific to the aid that the Unites States provides to countries in need to food and other items in the wake of a natural disaster or tragedy.

The first example the article covered was the tsunami that hit in the Indian Ocean in December 2004. Te wave devastated the coastline and killed a quarter of a million people. But the destruction only went so far. Just a few miles inland the country was fine and ready to support its people. Yes they needed aid but what kind of aid did they really need. We often think of food and water as the first things we should provide in the wake of a disaster such as this one but in reality what they needed was money. When the U.S. shipped in rice and gave it to the residents for free they disrupted the local market and began to cripple the countries economy.  Because they residents were getting the rice for free they did not have any need to buy it from the local market causing local farmers to suffer.

In light of this discovery, several aid organizations working locally tried a different approach. They purchased food locally and distributed it to the people who normally have received donations flown in from another country. They also paid the residents to clear the debris and provided grants to families housing other residents that were displaced by the destruction. In this instance the new approached worked well and boasted the community as a whole creating more jobs. The cash to buy food local ended up cheaper in the long run compared to the cost of shipping the food in and it was available faster to the ones in need.

There are several countries where food is not available for purchase and food aid is required but there are far more locations where food is available but people cannot afford to buy it. If we were to give money instead of food we could potentially boast the local markets creating additional job faster and more efficiently than shipping in aid.  There are even reports that show in Africa food bought locally was over 30 percent cheaper and arrived 3 months sooner than food sent by the United States.

The article goes on to explain that cash can get to people where food cannot. There are still several places where it is not safe for aid workers to travel but we could provide cash vouchers and they can, again, buy locally. Maybe we should rethink the aid we are providing to other countries and concentrate on what works best. With shipping costs rising we are wasting money.

If you have a chance please read the article. There are several other examples and it makes a ton of sense.We could use the food here at home and send other countries money. Maybe that would help take care of some of out problems locally!