With a billion hungry people on the planet, food aid is a good thing, right?
The answer, for anyone getting a helping bowl, is surely Yes.
But there are ways to do it right (see my favorite development organization Heifer International) and ways to do it that are right for wealthy U.S corporations that profit from the global food system.
The Guardian just released results of a study of US food aid that found:
The main beneficiaries of the programme, billed as aid to the world’s poorest countries, were the highly profitable and politically powerful companies that dominate the global grain trade: ADM, Cargill and Bunge.