- De Telegraaf newspaper in Amsterdam reports today on
page 11 that the international aid agency CARE has rejected an American
USAID food donation of R45-million -- because the American food-aid is
'inefficient and very damaging to Africa farmers'.
-
- Link to Dutch-language newspaper: a.. http://www.telegraaf.nl
-
- For years, the US taxpayer -- through the USAID food
agency -- have paid for heavily-subsidised US agricultural products such
as grain and soy being shipped with American ships to Africa - where this
food is supposed to be 'donated to food-aid agencies across the continent'.However,
it's little-known inside the US that instead of feeding starving populations
directly, these charities merely sell this USAID food directly to local
traders to finance their own charities with - usually to support their
own officials' salaries and expenses with the proceeds.
-
- LINK TO US-AID FOOD PROGRAMMES FOR SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA:
-
- http://www.usaid.gov/locations/sub-saharan_africa/countries/sudan/docs/update_feb07.pdf
-
- CARE also used to participate in this USAID scheme --
which is also hugely profitable for the highly-subsidised American farmers
and the US shipping companies and also put huge salaries into the pockets
of thousands of mostly foreign, 'development-aid' workers throughout Africa.
-
- However CARE has now rejected the entire USAID scheme.
CARE says this 'dumping of vast supplies of subsidised American food surpluses'
onto African markets is causing very unfair competition for millions of
struggling, small-scale African farmers all across the continent, including
in South Africa.
-
- They also point out that the USAID system also is very
inefficient, with vast profits being made along the way by the US transportation
companies taking the food to Africa. Locally-produced food can be redistributed
much quicker and cheaper, they point out.
-
- De Telegraaf's article also claims that former US president
Jimmy Carter is said to be one of the harshest critics of the USaid food-dumping
programme and that 'he agrees with CARE's viewpoint'. It's not known why
Carter was unable to stop the USAID programme during his term as US president.
-
- CARE emphasises that it 'still remains in favour of food-aid
to help desperately-hungry populations during famines'.
-
- Especially African countries such as Ethiopia and Kenya,
(which has a permanent US military presence,) have been the main recipients
of massive amounts of USAID food -- but since last year, Eritrea's government
has persistantly refused it. And recently the Tanzanian govenrment has
also turned down USAID offers.
-
- The UK newspaper The Observer wrote in May this year
that dirt-poor Malawi in southern Africa had had good harvests for the
first time in years -- in spite of the ravages of Aids amongst their production-age
population, their small-scale farmers were finally clawing back from a
long drought. However these local farmers, who are primarily women, were
totally unable to profit from their crops because 'the markets were saturated
with USAID-food from the United States - 'even porridge was being shipped
at vast expense from the US under this donor-scheme and sold at ridiculously
low prices on local markets.'
-
- One aid-agency worker noted pn a blog of The Observer
in this regard that he had personally seen: "sacks of food stencilled
"A Gift From The American People" tumbling off the back of lorries
into the arms of the traders. They were slitting them open there and then
and selling them.'
-
- LINKS:
-
- http://observer.guardian.co.uk/foodmonthly/
-
- http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/food/2007/05/in_1987_i_was_working.html
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