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What a Waste

Posted by: CARE on June 2, 2008 at 12:08PM EST

I had every intention of eating the tomato - I could see myself cutting it up into slices for salad, using it for grilled cheese or a bacon/lettuce and tomato sandwich. But good intentions aren't enough.
My refrigerator's cooling system suddenly went into overload, freezing containers of milk and juice solid, ruining fresh fruit and vegetables and meals I'd prepared in advance. Almost everything went into the garbage can yesterday, spoiled rotten. It was hard for me to throw food out and it made me mad at myself. Like many people, I was raised to "Waste Not, Want Not" and I hate wasting food almost beyond anything. And yet I do, not only as an individual, but as a citizen, because my tax dollars and yours fund wasteful food policies by the U.S. government. We waste millions of dollars and put millions of lives at risk with these practices.

For example, under U.S. law, food aid to other countries has to be "home grown" in the U.S. and shipped on vessels registered in the U.S. This benefits very few people - not the average American farmer nor the chronically hungry family overseas trying to get through another "hungry season," the time between harvests when there is precious little to eat. By and large, it is agro businesses who bid on U.S. government food contracts for overseas aid, not the Henderson family farm. It is large shipping concerns who profit from the shipping requirements built into U.S law, known as "cargo preference" - and hungry people who suffer. In part, this is because food shipped overseas takes, on average, three to four months to arrive at its destination; in part, it's because this food can compete with the food local farmers are trying to market in order to feed their own families.

Let me explain. Some U.S. food aid is designed to be distributed directly to needy people, usually in a disaster situation. But some of the aid is meant to be sold on the open market in-country by aid organizations, to fund long term, poverty-fighting programs. It would be far simpler and more efficient to provide direct funding to aid organizations, in the form of cash. That way, organizations like CARE could have the flexibility to respond to different situations where there is hunger in the most appropriate way. Sometimes, there is plenty of food available but people are too poor to buy it. In a case like that, cash transfers or vouchers work best. It's a bit like food stamps that allow people to buy food. Most importantly, you know that the most vulnerable people are getting what they need to survive. When food is sold on the open market anyone can buy it and it often doesn't reach the neediest people.

In a disaster situation, distributing food directly to hungry people is the best solution. Even a day is a long time when you're hungry, and in an emergency, every hour and every calorie of nutritious food you can get counts. Right now in Myanmar, for example, it's critical to get food to people as quickly as possible. They are in desperate straits, with no food, water or shelter. There's concern that their existing stocks of rice and rice seed for future harvests have been damaged, putting their livelihoods at risk. Rice is a staple food in my house - by choice, because I love rice, and by tradition, because of my Latin upbringing. In Myanmar, poor people depend on rice for survival.

But there is a bigger, long term disaster and that is that our government's policies aren't doing enough to fight chronic hunger. It takes more than food to do that. Stay tuned for more on this, since it's something I feel very strongly about.

Send This | Categories: Aid, care, Food, Food Aid, Myanmar, USAID

(1) Comments

Posted by: Philip Mwalali on June 3, 2008 11:12PM EST

The situation analysis here is quite good. It gives a comparative picture of what has been the practice and what could be done to achieve greater impact.

By large most of the current programs benefit the middle man (the transporter), the farmer may be second beneficiary. The "target beneficiary" -- the poor-- ranks third and sometimes the very needy are left our--and since they have no voice -- all is considered normal until when we need to highlight their desperate situation for another round of resource mobilization --- then they become an asset!!!!!!.

Most of the current practices are temporary in nature while others are emergencies. For emergency situations we probably have no choice but to do it the old way. However there is need to shift resource towards long term and sustainable interventions eg .

-Change from giving fish to supporting fish farming
-Change from giving food to supporting good yield agricultural practices.
-Change form sinking shallow wells with hand pumps to mechanized deep wells with capacity for large scale irrigation (to remove the drought factor once and for all)
-Change from financial grants without technical aid to supervised micro-financing with integrated training on good practices and management skills.

These changes will empower the community to pay for health care, clothing, education and other basics of life.

There is need to overhaul the "old ways" in order to address the "bigger long term disaster" discussed in the last paragraph.

Suppose we shift to mandatory design that requires an investments of US$1 to long term interventions for every US$ that goes into temporary or emergency interventions ----------- we would not be experiencing the current situation where development indicators remain unchanged or are worsening in some countries.

I salute CARE for the approach being suggested here --- flexibility -- controls what we can achieve per unity of resources. I will stay tuned for more.

At an opportune time we will be delighted to share with CARE our community based model for sustainable development-- a community driven model that we believe will inform reforms in Africa and other developing countries in relation to breaking the vicious cycle of poverty.

Thank you,

Philip Mwalali, MD, MPH
Medical Advisor & Programs Director,
Africa Economic Foundation Inc (AEF)