Giving Away Food from Government to Government Isn’t the Best Way to Solve World Hunger

November 23, 2023

Freer markets and property rights protections can be more efficient means to deal with localized food shortages.

by Brian Doherty Reason.com

Thanksgiving week is a time to be grateful for the nutritional abundance you enjoy, and for many an appropriate time to think about how to help those who have so much less. A study released last month by the Cato Institute suggests that those who support U.S. government-to-foreign-government food delivery aid as the best means to ensure more abundant food access across the globe should think again.

The study, written by Chris Edwards, Colin Grabow, and Krit Chanwong, close-focuses on three specific food aid programs under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and details their overarching flaws. These problems include that “US food aid can undermine agriculture in recipient countries and exacerbate conflicts in strife-?torn regions. Even in situations where food aid can reduce hunger, shipping US food abroad is an expensive way to help poor countries, particularly because of cargo preference rules requiring the use of US-?flagged ships. It is also usually slower to ship US food to needy countries than to procure it locally near aid recipients.”