, 6 tweets, 3 min read Read on Twitter
Oh God, no. A return to large-scale agricultural dumping in the guise of food aid. A proven way of undercutting farmers and destroying local markets in developing countries. You would do less damage just chucking the stuff overboard in the middle of the Atlantic.
Even the World Food Programme, whose MO for decades was basically shovelling American ag surpluses at developing countries (sometimes the right solution tbf, but heavily overused) has moved away from this. www1.wfp.org/food-assistance
Generally what happens is there's a food crisis in, say, sub-Saharan Africa, a grain ship chugs out of Baltimore or wherever (shippers and ports being part of the US food aid lobby btw) & arrives several weeks later just in time to undercut local markets as they start to recover.
Most food crises are local, often plenty of food to be bought a hell of a lot closer than Iowa. Best solution rapid-action fund to buy food from closest source and easiest to transport. This from the redoubtable agroeconomist Joachim von Braun nails it. journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.117…
Also v likely WTO non-compliant, for what that's worth these days. (h/t @CoppetainPU, @GeorgeMRiddell)
(I should have been numbering these tweets, sorry). NB the US food aid lobby much bigger than farmers. Shippers and shipping labor unions also v vocal, hence has Dem as well as Rep support. It's a disgrace. publicintegrity.org/accountability…
reuters.com/article/usa-fo…
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