Posted on 08/20/2007 6:38:31 AM PDT by yankeedame
Last Updated: Friday, 17 August 2007, 10:00 GMT 11:00 UK
Care said it did not oppose
emergency food aid during a crisis
The international aid group, Care, has rejected a donation of $45m (£22.7m) from the United States government. Care criticised the way US food aid is distributed, saying it harms local farmers, especially in Africa.
It said wheat donated by the US government and distributed by charities introduced low prices that local farmers are unable to compete with.
But USAid says assessments are carried out to try to ensure that commodities do not disrupt local production.
Correspondents says disagreements have emerged in the US aid community on the best way to use food aid.
"We came to the realisation that if we wanted to do what was in the best interest of poor people and efficiency in aid, that this wasn't it," Care President Helene Gayle told Reuters news agency.
Care said it did not oppose emergency food aid during periods of drought or famine.
But the group said the US government's method of food aid did not help communities which were permanently in need
I agree.
CARE wants $$$$ not donations in kind.
They can't "spend" or support the corrupt political system with sacks of grain.
Keep the money, use it on the fence!!!
Now there’s an idea...
Shouldn't be long before the Wheat Cartel has CARE declare child-labor culturally acceptable.
Meanwhile, The African Wheat Cartel is now considering partnering with AlGore to use it's crops for ethanol export to Hollywood & Washington Liberals.
But the point is that the local farmers are so inefficient that they CAN'T produce enough to feed their own people. Do you suggest we just let them starve???
No.
I’m surprised you actually believe that little story. This is about skimming bags of money, not bags of wheat.
Following WWII CARE achieved a fabulous reputation as food aid was sent to a Europe on the verge of famine. Over the last two decades it has globalized and CARE chapters have opened in Britain, Australia, etc. All of the CARE operations generally use food supplied by the United States to fund their operations with foreign governments. And they have not been too choosey about the governments, the most egregious recently being the government of the Sudan which has practiced its own form of genocide in Southern Sudan and Darfur. CARE is an organizaation that long ago outlived its usefulness. Time to shut it down.
The disruptive nature of free foodstuffs in Africa has been reported since the 1950s. The problem with liberal thought is they keep expecting a different outcome.
Time to stop all foreign aid to countries that are “perpetually in need”, except perhaps in times of natural disaster. I see this as no different than welfare, where people come to view their gov’t checks as a living, rather than a way to hold them over ‘til they’re able to fend for themselves. Doesn’t work for individuals, and it ain’t gonna work for entire nations.
This is the attitude the is shown here. And in truth, is is true that free food does hurt the local farmers income. That being said, if the local producers can not produce the food needed to survive, the population should be getting the free food.
This is the problem with handouts. Be it a single person or an entire group of countries, free anything causes economic shifts and can worsen the situation.
What is the answer, I don’t know.
Guess they’d rather see communities in need starve to death.
Oh no ... we have ENOUGH ILLEGALS!
;)
Actually, the answers are pretty simple. It starts with food aid, of course, but then the local farmers have to be taught methods by which to become more productive. I think a lot of people in the USA have little realization of the GIGANTIC contribution to US prosperity that the establishment of the "Agriculture and Mechanical Colleges" had. The establishment of equivalent systems "in-country" is needed. The last leg is BETTER ROADS. If the more efficient farmers can't get their crops to wider markets, that improved efficiency means nothing.
But these three things all rely mostly on improving the INDIVIDUAL, and not "social groups", so the socialist leaners will never implement them.
"Wheat, the other food-for-fuel"?
You mean like our farmers and welfare state?
#####
Like Americans who prefer to go to food banks for their free food, rather than go through the “tedious paperwork” of applying for food stamps. Some people will always take the path of least resistance.
Charity protecting capitalism?
or
is it a charity protecting a despot using food as a weapon.
Some huckster on TV is soliciting $10 gifts to ship rice to Africa too. Giant Scam?????
Think it trough for a few moments. Subsidized farms, free food for the undeserving, crop loans, GMO crops, Agri-Chem companies, property taxes and the whole convoluted mess.
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