U.S. food aid - "iron triangle” of interest groups are the beneficiaries

Inter Press Service News Agency has an article by Jim Lobe, that those of us who are more interested in tackling poverty with logic rather than by displaying trite slogans advertising a loose collection of aid organisations suffering from chronic trust shortage, will find interesting.

The Minnesota-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) has published a 47-page report, "U.S. Food Aid: Time to Get It Right," that calls for a major overhaul of food aid programmes, including ”untying” the assistance from U.S.-origin and shipping requirements, as well as the practice of monetisation -- that is, providing food to NGOs or local governments for sale so that the proceeds can be used for aid work or other purposes.

It also calls on Washington to do more to encourage local food production in poor countries, particularly in Africa, to ensure long-term food security by investing more in agriculture, establishing a system of emergency food reserves, and encouraging multilateral agencies, in consultation with recipient countries, to adopt uniform rules on food aid.

The authors of the report are IATP programme director Sophia Murphy, and Kathleen McAfee, a geographer at the University of California in Berkeley.

Getting straight to the point, McAfee says that food aid has to be part of a much larger strategy to build and protect food security to ensure we are not feeding people now who will still be food aid recipients in 20 years.

The report describes what makes U.S. food aid more objectionable, is the ”iron triangle” of interest groups that are its greatest beneficiaries. These groups -- agribusiness, shipping companies, and NGOs -- enjoy a ”stranglehold on food aid practice,” according to the report, perpetuating a dysfunctional system through their influence on Congress and the government.

Under U.S. law, for example, a minimum of 75 percent of U.S. food aid must be sourced, fortified, processed and bagged in the U.S., and only a handful of firms, notably Cargill and Archer-Daniels Midland (ADM) are qualified to bid on the procurement contracts. The result is that the government has paid on average about 11 percent more than open-market prices for food aid.

Jim Lobes article describes in detail how the system currently operates and how it hinders, rather than helps those who are in dire need.

Links.
Group Slams the ”Iron Triangle” of Food Aid (Jim Lobe. Inter Press Service News Agency)
IATP
IATP Press release (pdf)
Read the report (pdf)