Last winter I was in Kenya on the Environmental Studies FSP. The focus of the term was supposed to be community-based conservation projects. However, given the complete immersion in an economy, lifestyle and culture completely different than my own, I really felt I learned a lot more about people and the troubles of third world nations. One particular idea I gathered during the program was in regards to the sending of famine relief food to foreign nations. What struck me was that Kenyan professors told us that food aid had a very negative impact on the country.
Up to the point of going to Kenya, my knowledge of famine consisted of hearing "We Are The World" in third grade and the occasional Sally Struthers commercial on TV. The idea behind the song and the commercials seemed to make sense. The U.S. has a food surplus, other countries have a dire need for food, so send the food to them. However, the distribution of food aid has much more complex implications than simply feeding hungry people.
"Stop sending us food." That is what Professor Kahindi of the University of Nairobi told us one day in class. This was his reasoning: Kenya has a drought every four years or so. The result of these droughts is the withering of staple crops and a nationwide food shortage which necessitates foreign aid.
However, in the years between the shortages, Kenya has a food surplus and exports staple crops to other countries. The surplus is exported and none saved despite the knowledge that there will be drought a few years down the road. None is saved because food aid is expected. Kahindi reasoned that if no further aid was sent, Kenya could devise a way to feed itself. In his opinion, there was no food shortage in Kenya, merely a shortage of long-term planning.
Professor Ikiara, an economics professor also from the University of Nairobi, expounded upon the same idea in a different class. Food aid was seen as a negative thing not only because it gave incentive to not be self-sufficient, it also had a negative impact on the economy and was used for political leveraging. When food aid comes into a country, the market is flooded with a free commodity. The result of this is that farmers whose crops have survived the drought can no longer sell their goods. It is impossible to compete with something that is free. This puts further strain on the stricken country as farmers with crops to sell are put out of business.
Because control of the aid lies in the hands of the government, it can be used as a very potent political weapon. Food can be dispersed to regions supporting the government and withheld from those that offer resistance. Votes can be bought with the promise of food or the threat to withhold it.
What does this mean to us as Americans? Human decency asks that we help our neighbor when they are in need, but we should be careful with the way in which we help others lest we cause them further damage.
A threat to not send food aid coupled with the donation of grain silos may benefit a developing country much more than sending food whenever the need arises. If what professors Kahindi and Ikiara said is true of most developing countries and not just Kenya, the use of long-term planning rather than stopgap solutions may be of benefit to all parties, with the exception, of course, of Sally Struthers.