Let Them Eat Promises
> Food vs fuel? US ethanol and tortilla riots? > > Why are these people in Malawi growing maize and soy anyway? Hardly > their best choice. > > See also: > > http://snipurl.com/rcij > [Biofuel] Bushfood > > http://snipurl.com/rcik > [Biofuel] Myth: More US aid will help the hungry > > http://snipurl.com/rcim > Re: [Biofuel] US Foreign aid > Food Dumping [Aid] Maintains Poverty > > http://snipurl.com/rcig > [Biofuel] The US and Foreign Aid Assistance > > http://snipurl.com/rcih > [Biofuel] Famines as Commercial Opportunity > > http://snipurl.com/rcii > [Biofuel] Famine As Commerce > > http://snipurl.com/rcin > [Biofuel] Inequality in wealth > > - Keith > > -------- > > http://observer.guardian.co.uk/foodmonthly/story/0,,2086227,00.html > | Food monthly | The Observer > > Special investigation > > How America is betraying the hungry children of Africa > > Edina gets a free mug of porridge each day. Good news? Well, it is > for the US government who dumps its leftovers in the name of charity. > Read more from Alex Renton on food aid on our brand new food blog, > Word of Mouth and join the debate > > Sunday May 27, 2007 > The Observer > > It's early May and Malawi seems to be awash with corn. On the roads, > trucks heavy with pale yellow maize heads rumble from the fields; in > the villages nearly every woman and child is at work stripping the > little kernels from their cobs, singing the harvest songs that give a > rhythm to their work. Other women are pounding the maize with a giant > pestle and mortar into flour to make the national staple dish - nzima > - corn mash. (The men mostly seem to be occupied drinking the new > season's maize beer.) It has been the best harvest in a dozen years > or more. So why - and this is what we've come here to ask - in this > time of historic plenty, is the rich world still sending its unwanted > food to Malawi? > > This little southern-African country has had a rough decade. > Staggering under the effects of an Aids epidemic that affects one in > five of the population in some districts, there were famines here in > 2002, 2003 and one in 2005, when a third of Malawi's 13 million > people ran out of food. Until this April, over 300,000 were still > being fed emergency rations by the United Nations World Food > Programme. Malawi deserved a good year. > > But record harvests don't necessarily guarantee good times. 'We have > so much maize this year - thanks be to God,' says Felicita Bailoni. > 'But we have a problem over where to sell it. It's not just that the > price is so low because there is so much maize, there isn't anyone to > sell it to. The traders normally visit the village but they haven't > come.' Felicita, 59, talks as she rubs the kernels from a cob into a > basin before her. Even in the time of plentiful food she's worried. > She and her husband Stephen look after her two grandchildren, whose > mother died three years ago, and two other orphans. > > Most households in their village, Kunthembwe, have taken in the > children of those who have died from Aids - which is particularly > severe here around Blantyre in southern Malawi. Felicita and her > enlarged family have more than enough food for today and for the year > ahead - but they need cash to pay the children's school fees, for > clothes and other necessities. And maize corn is so plentiful at the > moment it fetches only eight Malawian kwacha, or about 3p a kilo - if > you can sell it. In 2005, the price went up to 50 kwacha a kilo. The > Bailonis are hoping to sell 100 50kg bags of corn ears - the cobs are > lying round the back of their two-room house in a vast wooden cradle > designed to keep the rats away. 'But if we wait till the price goes > up, the weevils will spoil our maize,' says Felicita. 'We can only > sit and worry.' > > 'The price is so low,' says Charles Rethman, a Malawi-based analyst > of what the NGOs call 'food security', 'that we have a concern now > about next year. Farmers will be put off growing maize, and they > won't have the cash to buy the seeds for the next planting. So in > 2008 we're looking at the possibility of another food crisis. So it's > really important that we do everything we can to get the price up to > a level that rewards the farmers.' > > With so much cheap corn available Rethman is bemused by a US > government deal, announced in April, to ship $19.5 million of > American corn and soya to Malawi as food aid. 'It's a nonsense,' he > says. > > Everywhere I go in the little villages in the shadow of Michiru > mountain I hear the same story. Plenty of maize but no market. This > affects the very poorest. In one village I meet Lena Butao, a > 24-year-old whose mother died last year, her father in 2003. (Aids > has brought a collapse in life expectancy in Malawi to just 37 > years). She looks after her three brothers and sisters, the youngest > only 10. They managed to harvest 18 bags of maize from their parents' > field, but it won't see them through this year. Lena needs to raise > money to pay for school fees, soap, clothes and for medicine. She's > in the middle of a bout of malaria; she shivers in the sunshine as > she speaks to us. 'Normally I can earn about 500 kwacha (about £1.80 > ) a week working in the fields for my neighbours. But at the moment > the farmers don't have any money. Life is very difficult.' Lena had > to leave school when her parents first became ill and she thinks now > that she'll never achieve her dream of becoming a housemaid. The > children ate nzima and stewed pumpkin leaves last night: they haven't > eaten meat this year. > > There's one good piece of news for Lena: her 10-year-old brother > Joshua's primary school has become part of the school-feeding > programme run by the Malawian government and various aid agencies. > This is a huge undertaking that now reaches over half a million > children in the country, 20 per cent of all of those in primary > school. It is playing a major part in addressing the awful fact that > almost half of Malawian children have had their physical or mental > growth damaged by malnutrition. And the half a million mugs of > porridge served them each day are a guaranteed outlet for the produce > of Malawian maize and soya farmers. > > The next day, I travel to the village of Kampala and the sprawling > red-brick compound of the Catholic Institute primary school. Built in > the 1930s by missionaries, when Malawi was the British colony of > Nyasaland, the school looks as though it hasn't been touched since. > Most windows are broken and the grounds strewn with rubbish - it's > pretty average for a Malawian school, I'm told. In her office, deputy > head Annie Nakhouhouma is totting up the attendance figures - today > the school is teaching an amazing 6,334 children aged between six and > 17. Its 21 classrooms can't hold them all so, despite the cold > drizzle that's falling, there are crowds of children under each of > the big fig trees that dot the school grounds, in front of each group > a blackboard and a teacher. I peer into one shabby classroom, and > count 190 small children sitting inside. There's no room for > furniture, so they are packed on the floor as close as sardines. The > 10-year-olds are learning English: 'Hello, mister, how are you?' they > chant at me. It's deafening. > > There's a stranger sight - straight out of Oliver Twist - on the > rough ground behind the classroom block. Hundreds of excited > children, each clutching a large mug, are circulating around a camp > of vast cooking stoves - 23 of them. Women in brightly-coloured wraps > stir vats of grainy yellow porridge. This is CSB - corn-soya blend - > a mix of maize, meal and soya flour, vitamins and sugar widely used > in emergency feeding around the world. Locally it's called likuni > phala. I taste it - it's sweet and nutty, a sort of gritty Ready > Brek. Clouds of steam rise in the damp air as the children gulp the > porridge greedily from their mugs - for many of them it's the first > meal of the day and for some it will be the only one. > > CSB is a wonderful product and the teachers are delighted. 'Look at > the children - they are now so energetic. They don't fall asleep in > class. They don't fight over each other's food, like they used to. > They're fatter!' says Gertrude Sonani, who teaches 13-year-olds. But > the effect goes further than just feeding the kids up. Children come > to the school because of the meal - class numbers are up by about 7 > per cent in every age group since the feeding programme began in > January. > > In a country where only 70 per cent of the children attend primary > school, that's an achievement. At another nearby primary, where an > Oxfam partner supplies milk to mix into the free porridge, the head > teacher, Annie Jana, told me that she now had 800 eight-year-olds, > compared to 500 when the programme started a year ago. 'Absenteeism > has fallen, and even children who dropped out are coming back, > especially girls.' And in Malawi, getting girls into school has > always been difficult - which is why half of all women are illiterate. > > The logistics behind feeding 6,300 children a mug of porridge are > quite something. This programme is funded by the charity Scottish > International Relief (SIR), through its local organisation, Mary's > Meals. They show me a school storeroom where the bags of likuni phala > tower high above the piles of textbooks and papers. Each day the > contents of 46 of these sacks, nearly half a tonne, are mixed with > water on the stoves and heated and served by volunteers from among > the school's parents. The cost of the CSB comes out at about four > kwacha, about 1.5p, per child - SIR feeds 175,000 children daily in > Malawi at a cost of about £5.30 per child per year. One of the > volunteers, Edina Moussa, told me that now her three children > actually want to go to school. 'I'm a widow,' she said, 'and often it > is hard to find enough to feed them.' She works as hired labour in > her neighbour's fields, earning about 75p a day. 'Before January,' > she says, 'they were often too tired to come to school. But now they > come every day.' > > School feeding is such an obviously good idea that the aid agencies > and the Malawian government have been bringing more and more schools > into the programme since it began in 1999. Most of the CSB comes free > from the World Food Programme (WFP), which uses donated corn and soya > - some of it from the Malawian government - and more that it buys > locally. At the moment 442,000 children are being fed with CSB by WFP > at school, 20 per cent of all Malawi's primary-school children. > Malawians are proud of the programme: two weeks ago, some 60,000 of > them went on sponsored walks to help raise money for school feeding. > > Impressed by all this, in April the US Government announced that it > wanted to join in. It would give WFP nearly $20 million over three > years to help fund an expansion of the programme so, from 2008, > 650,000 Malawian children get a daily mug of porridge at school. At > the same time it announced similar schemes for Kenya, Cambodia, > Guinea and Pakistan - a total spend of $85.9 million. WFP applauds > the deal. 'It's a massive donation and a huge boost to the government > of Malawi's school-feeding programme,' the organisation's country > director, Dom Scalpelli, told me. > > But not everyone in the country was overjoyed. 'It's very > short-sighted - it doesn't make any sense. It's going to > short-circuit the effort to improve nutrition here, it undermines > farmers, households. It's not sustainable and it won't bring about > any long-term change to malnutrition rates,' said Charles Rethman, > echoing many critics of the plan. > > The problem is - though WFP left this detail out of their press > release - that the US grant came with a condition: it had to be spent > on American CSB to be bought from American farmers and put in > American ships to be transported to Malawi. According to WFP, the > cost of buying, transporting and packing the annual 8,000 tonnes of > US CSB will be $812 a tonne. SIR, which will buy about 3,600 tonnes > of Malawian CSB - likuni phala - this year, expects to pay around > $320 a tonne (distribution costs add another 5 per cent). Simply, if > the American money was spent in Malawi, it could feed nearly > two-and-a-half times as many schoolchildren. > > Malawians are peaceable and polite people - but there was anger in > the voice of one aid worker involved in school feeding when we talked > about this. 'This is giving aid with one hand and taking it away with > another. It's the Big Man saying: kneel down before I give you the > help. These people, they get the food, they are vulnerable, they clap > their hands and say, "Thank you Mr Bush". They don't understand > what's really going on.' > > Someone who does is the World Food Programme's man in Malawi, Dom > Scalpelli, an amiable Australian who has spent 17 of his 40 years > working for the world's largest humanitarian aid agency. His defence > of this particular policy is slick - he and his colleagues have had > to make it many times. WFP needs the US: 43 per cent of all the food > aid WFP provides comes from America, and 98 per cent of it is 'in > kind' - American corn, soya, rice, oil and beans, shipped at > considerable expense to where it's needed. America boasts that, > through these programmes, it feeds 70 million people a year (it was > 100 million during the 1990s). 'Listen,' says Scalpelli, 'the child > doesn't care if his porridge is Malawian or American. The important > thing is that more of them are going to be getting it. And American > CSB is cheaper than Malawian.' > > In fact the two cost about the same, but Scalpelli is being > disingenuous. The price of shipping and administration - and it is US > law that American companies are used for packing and shipping 75 per > cent of American food aid - puts the cost of the US-sourced CSB at > absurdly high levels. Only a third of the money granted for food aid > actually goes on food - the rest is transport and administration. The > US Congress's Government Accountability Office has criticised the > system, saying that a $10-per-tonne cut in shipping rates would > enable the feeding of 850,000 more people. Indeed, Malawi would have > done better if the US Government had written WFP a cheque for cost of > shipping and administering the grant, and not sent any American food > at all. > > Surely, I asked Scalpelli, it would be better if the Americans gave > cash and you spent it in the Malawian market - you don't just feed > the children but you also support Malawian farmers. Isn't it a > nonsense, when Malawi has just brought in a record-breaking harvest? > > 'Yes of course we'd have taken the money and yes, we could have > sourced it locally. But the reality of what we're living through is > that you take advantage of any grain you can get. The CSB is not > displacing the local Malawian CSB - it's going to schools and it's > being eaten, it's targeted and it's not going on to the market. The > local farmers will still get business from us - and we'll still buy > Malawian CSB.' > > 'It's absurd,' counters Charles Rethman. 'You could feed twice as > many children, create jobs, stimulate the maize price and help the > farmers. Anything that will increase demand for farmers is a good > thing: this flies in the face of the Malawian government's > development strategy and its attempts to stand on its own two feet.' > > The story of how American corn gets in Malawian children's porridge > begins in the great-plains states like Kansas and Iowa, where, as the > American food policy critic Michael Pollan puts it, there is 'a > plague of cheap corn'. It's a sad tale that begins in 1973, when the > Nixon administration started directly subsidising corn (maize) > farmers in a way that encouraged them to produce as much as possible. > That policy has meant an ever-increasing excess of American corn, > which most years costs the US taxpayer some $5-$10 billion to > subsidise. As Pollan says, the money, which in 2005 kept the price of > corn at around half what it costs to produce, is in effect a subsidy > for the big American companies that buy and process the corn - and > these companies and their political supporters are the ones that > dictate American farm policy. Meanwhile the unwanted corn has to go > somewhere - and dumping it abroad has always been one of the answers. > > Some 20 per cent of US corn is exported, and at times the proportion > going as food aid has matched that. In the 1990s, under the Clinton > administration, food aid reached record levels, and the US claimed to > feed as many as 100 million people a year in the developing world > (some 850 million are said to be chronically malnourished). In 2003 > America provided 56 per cent of all the food aid in the world. But an > indicator that the richest nation's motives are not entirely > charitable is that, throughout those years, America's food aid > volumes increased massively at times when prices in the US were > depressed - up to 20 per cent of American cereals production goes > abroad as food aid when the market is down, but when domestic prices > are high this figure falls to just five per cent. In 1993, when > global food aid reached an all-time high of 17.3 million tonnes (in > 2005, the last year for which there are complete records the figure > was 8.25 million tonnes), US prices of staples like corn and rice > were at historic lows. > > The many critics of American food aid make the point that the buying > up of US farmers' surpluses is another way of subsidising them - and, > most years, federal payments make up about half the income of the > average Iowa corn farmer. Such unprecedented support puts up a wall > against farmers from the developing world who want to sell in the > markets of the rich. The European Union abandoned food aid in kind in > 1999 - all but two per cent now goes as cash - and Peter Mandelson, > as Europe's trade commissioner, has called for 'radical reform' from > the Americans. 'Food aid for poor countries and emergency relief can > be a tool to advance development and for humanitarian relief. But the > US programme is designed to give support to US agricultural > producers,' he said. > > But this was generally seen as pretty hypocritical. Most aid-agency > observers reckon the EU has used American intransigence as an excuse > to put off reforms of European farm subsidies - like the notorious > two euros a day each cow on the continent receives - again, a way of > putting up a barrier against the farmers of Africa, South American > and Asia. This produces real absurdities - it's often pointed out > that the money the rich world gives in aid to poor countries, often > to help improve agriculture, is worth less than what those countries > could earn if Europe and America simply reformed their subsidies and > opened up their markets. > > 'Sharing our agricultural abundance' is the smug phrase that the US > agriculture secretary, Mike Johanns, uses to describe food aid. In > most years the US still provides between 55 and 65 per cent of global > food aid, 98 per cent of it in the form of food. The price is > enormous - up to $2 billion per annum. Even the relatively modest > school-feeding programme is worth $200 million this year - 330,000 > tonnes of American agricultural products to 17 countries in Africa, > Asia and Latin America. Johanns is actually said to be in favour of > reforming food aid, but he showed no qualms when he announced plans > to flood these countries - many of them with food surpluses - with > US-made porridge for school children in February this year. 'These > programmes demonstrate America's continued compassion and commitment > to improve the lives of people around the world,' he said. > > Gawain Kripke, an American who leads Oxfam's lobbying of the US > government on the issue of food aid, disagrees. 'The US's food-aid > programme is meant to be charitable and helpful in nature but it's > been picked apart by private interests so that the majority of the > benefit goes to US commerce, rather than to people who need help. > There is a debate in Washington over its reform - but the > malnourished people of Africa don't have a seat at the table when US > budgets are divided.' > > It's a stock picture on TV-news reports of wars and disasters - sacks > of food tumbling into forests of grasping hands from aid lorries. > They often come labelled with a stars and stripes and the words, 'A > Gift from the American People'. But the gift often has some > unpalatable side effects. 'Emergency food aid in humanitarian > situations is of course a good thing, but it can be a terribly blunt > instrument,' says Ann Witteveen, Oxfam's food security coordinator > for southern Africa. It can and does often do more harm than good. > The very promise of free food can cause disaster-hit populations to > leave their homes and move to refugee camps. They may become > dependent on it, making it harder for them to take up their lives > again when the disaster or danger has passed. Farmers leave their > fields, prices fall and local traders lose their businesses. Clearly, > while food aid saves lives in a disaster, it can hamper the return to > normality. > > It has done more insidious damage, as detailed by some aid agencies. > Food aid can permanently damage the economies of nations it was sent > to help. Vast tonnages of rice donated by the USA and Japan to > Indonesia after the country's economic collapse in 1997 caused damage > to farmers and distributors that has never been repaired: having been > one of the world's largest producers, Indonesia is now a net importer > of rice. > > All the countries, from Sri Lanka to Indonesia, hit by the tsunami of > Boxing Day 2004, had good supplies of rice available at low cost - > yet the US insisted on sending 30,000 tonnes of US rice and other > food after the disaster. In Afghanistan it has been suggested that > one of the reasons that Afghan farmers have turned to opium-poppy > production is that the market for the wheat they used to farm had > become too unreliable since the US-led invasion of 2001 opened the > door for massive amounts of food aid. > > 'A lot of food aid is incredibly silly,' sighs Ann Witteveen. > 'Markets in southern Africa aren't terribly efficient and it is hard > to prove how food aid affects them. But what farmers and traders need > is predictability and stability in the market and food aid is a major > destabilising factor.' > > Malawi itself has a blatant example of the damage that can be wrought > by food aid. In 2002, a crisis was predicted, after a shortfall of > 600,000 tonnes in the harvest. Unusually, the international community > provided exactly what had been appealed for - but the sums were > wrong. Malawi was flooded with cheap grain and the price of maize > dropped from $250 a tonne to $100 a tonne during 2003. Malawian > farmers suffered: the loss to the Malawian economy was estimated at > $15m, and local production of not just maize but also of key crops > like cassava and rice dropped massively. All this made it harder for > Malawi to return to self-sufficiency when the crisis was over. Even > last year, when Malawi had a 250,000 tonne surplus of maize, the US > still shipped in over 40,000 tonnes of American food as aid. > > Some of this food aid is not even for the hungry: it is passed on to > favoured US-based NGOs like Save the Children (US), World Vision and > Care to be 'monetised' - sold and used for cash to pay their salaries > and costs. In 2004, for example, America donated 22,000 tonnes of > white-wheat flour for aid agencies working in Eritrea to sell on the > open market and use the funds for their operations. This year the US > aid agency Care announced that it was going to phase out this system > of funding by the year 2010. But in 2005, 22 per cent of all food aid > was sold, not distributed, in the countries it was sent to. > > From across the world, there are stories of how, once a dependency on > food aid has been established and local production destroyed, the aid > stops and commercial supply begins - not so different and hardly more > moral than the tactics of a drug pusher. This has happened with > American soya beans in the Philippines and Japanese rice in Jamaica. > Subsidised dairy produce from Europe has, according to Oxfam, put > milk farmers out of business in a number of Caribbean countries. > > One senior international-agency official once told me he had a new > idea for the business of aid delivery. 'It's called the JGTTM > strategy: Just Give Them The Money'. And indeed this is becoming a > popular strategy. As Dom Scalpelli says, cash handouts are often a > good and efficient strategy for helping the hungry, if local markets > have enough supply. 'Local and Regional Procurement' is so much > talked about in the world of food aid that it has its own acronym - > LRP, and it is the stated preferred option of WFP. Scalpelli is proud > that his agency will this year buy some of that Malawian surplus in > order to feed the hungry in neighbouring Zambia and Zimbabwe, hit by > drought and, in Zimbabwe's case, economic meltdown. > > Food aid could be on the way out. Corn prices are high in the US this > year, and the futures market is very excited at the prospects of > using those great grain mountains for producing ethanol - bio-diesel > - and thus addressing another of the rich world's pressing problems. > Europe, Canada and Australia have all been persuaded to convert some > or all of their food-aid programmes to cash, rather than in kind. > Among the major donors only America, Japan and China hold out. > > There is mounting pressure in the US for changes in the food-aid > system, driven by a damning report from the US Congress about the > inefficiencies. It highlighted the $171 a tonne that US carriers > charge, compared with the $100 a tonne WFP can normally get from its > own contractors. It also found that US food aid frequently is > contaminated or infested by insects by the time it arrives in the > country that needs it. > > The Bush administration's current, modest proposal is that a quarter > of the food-aid budget for emergency food (which most years is more > than half the total) should be spent in destination countries. This > is eminently sensible - emergency food sourced in the US takes more > than four months, on average, to arrive, whereas cash spent locally > can deliver food within weeks. But the suggestion has twice been > knocked back by Congress, driven by a powerful lobby of agribusiness > and the shipping industry. The debate will gather steam over the > summer as this year's US Farm Bill is debated. > > But in any case, as the US department of agriculture told me, school > feeding programmes will continue to be supplied with American food - > enough for 437,000 children in Malawi this year. Why - with a bumper > crop and Malawian corn a fifth the price of American? That's the > policy, they said - 'Food aid in kind is valid and effective'. > > Increasingly, it seems, the developing world may take matters into > its own hands. One government official in Malawi told me that > ministries there had not been informed about the latest US grant, and > would be very unhappy about it. Last year Eritrea, a food-aid addict > for all of the country's brief and tragic history, declared that, for > the dignity of its people and in order to end 'a culture of dangerous > dependency', it would accept no more food aid. > > Back in Malawi, Oxfam's Mary Khozombah works in the countryside > around Blantyre helping farmers secure a stable way of life and > adequate income. A native of Zimbabwe, she's seen the dire ill > effects brought about by ill-advised agricultural policies in > Southern Africa. 'People who want to help Malawi need to support > agriculture by educating farmers, improving irrigation, helping > people find other forms of income. We need empowerment so our farmers > can export. Ask us! We might come up with good ideas. > > 'Food aid,' she says forcefully, 'should be the last resort, in an > emergency - and even then it should be bought locally if possible. Of > course, if people say we want to give you food, we'll say yes - you > can't say no. Poor nations like us too often just accept the charity > without looking properly at the effects. But in the long term it > really kills our people.' > > Just say no how Eritrea refused food aid > > In May 2006, at the height of the drought in the Horn and East of > Africa, Eritrea declared it wanted no more foreign food aid. The > government had already halted the distribution of free food to all > but a few thousand people and removed the operating licences of three > international aid agencies involved in food handouts. It had locked > the warehouses containing 100,000 tonnes of United Nations World Food > Programme stocks. No longer, said the government in a lengthy > statement posted on its official website, would the people of Eritrea > be able to see free food 'as a permanent factor in their life and > even as a "right or natural entitlement".' > > It was a move that shocked observers. At the end of last year, the UN > had predicted that the drought would mean two-thirds of Eritrea's 3.6 > million people would need food aid during 2006; 1.3 million people > were receiving supplementary food aid in late 2005. But the > government of Isaias Afewerki, the charismatic former guerrilla > leader who led Eritrea's independence battle with Ethiopia, was > adamant. If countries wanted to give aid, then cash would be > acceptable. This would be used to pay the poor for work, which would > enable them to buy food. > > Much of Eritrea has been fed by outsiders for all of the 13 years of > the country's existence. Years of free food aid, according to the > government, had begun 'to foster a culture of dangerous dependency' > in the country. It had 'nurtured lethargy, debilitating idleness and > unemployment' and eroded the 'industriousness and hard work ethics of > communities'. > > Reaction to the Eritrean move was surprisingly muted. A senior UN > official flew to Asmara to ask what was happening to the food in the > warehouses, and found that the government was considering selling it, > and using the cash to pay people who would have received it in return > for work. The aid agencies, however, refrained from criticism- > chiefly because Afewerki and his ministers were repeating what aid > analysts have been saying for years. > > Who gives and who gets in the world of food aid > > In 2005, 93 countries or territories received a total of 8.25 million > tonnes of food aid. More than half of it went to sub-Saharan Africa. > > Givers > > United States - 49% of the global food aid deliveries > European Union - 18% > China - 7% > Japan and the Republic of Korea - 5% each > Canada - 3% > Australia - 2% > > Recipients > > The eight main recipients in 2005 shared 50 per cent of the food aid > deliveries > > Ethiopia - 13% > North Korea - 13% > Sudan - 11% > Uganda - 4% > Eritrea and Bangladesh - 3% each > > Top 1960 recipients > > India, Poland, Egypt, Pakistan, Brazil > > · Does food aid do more harm than good? Join the debate on our new > food blog, Word of Mouth > · Alex Renton and Abbie-Trayler Smith travelled to Malawi with Oxfam > > > _______________________________________________ > Biofuel mailing list > Biofuel@sustainablelists.org > http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org > > Biofuel at Journey to Forever: > http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html > > Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 > messages): > http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ > > _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
