Canada has a long history of providing food aid during crises. However, there has been much debate over time about its value to recipients and whether programs have been properly designed to address both emergencies and recovery from them.
Given high levels of global food insecurity (see SOFI), food aid does not appear to have made a dint in global hunger, though it has importantly provided short - term relief from starvation in many instances, particularly through the World Food Program.
The design of many programs has actually exacerbated food insecurity. Many programs were really designed historically to prop up the domestic agricultural sector of the donor country, and in so doing they helped de-stabilize food production longer term in the recipient country. Free aid commodities circulated in black markets undercutting the prices of local products. For example, the US flooded Haiti with rice during the 1980s, destroying local markets and causing a rural migration of former farmers to the cities. It also appears to have contributed to a long term shift to importing rice rather than relying on domestic production (Sanders, L.(2021). Avoiding the humanitarian trap: The ‘Nobelization’ of food aid.Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 11(1), 15–19.) https://www.foodsystemsjournal.org/index.php/fsj/article/view/1036/1007
How to provide aid without compromising local economies (sanders):
1. International aid agencies buy as much as possible on local markets
2. Where this is not possible, and global supplies must be sourced, develop with local actors a transition plan for weaning off foreign supplies, including provision of monetary aid and capacity-building services aimed directly at the food system sector experiencing inefficiency. Investments in resilient infrastructure
3. In some cases provide cash transfers rather than food aid.
Budget 2023 compared to Budget 2022, the overall international assistance funding was cut by at least $1.3 billion – 15%.
https://www.idrc.ca/en/initiative/canadian-international-food-security-research-fund
https://www.onewelfareworld.org/
From Mustafa Koc -
Despite some notable progress towards the targets of Rome Declaration on food security in some countries around the world, food insecurity rates continue to rise among the most vulnerable groups in recent years again. World Food Program estimated that as many as 783 million people were facing chronic hunger in 2023. The Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC 2021) reported that food insecurity rates reached crisis level in 55 countries/territories both in terms of severity of the situation and the numbers of people involved and a significant portion of these are warn-torn countries. While rising inflation, COVID-19 and financial crisis are often blamed, one of the most significant contributors to food insecurity has been wars and other forms of armed conflict in certain parts of the world. Wars destroy lives, livelihoods and environment. Funds spent for armament also rub societies out of investing in social welfare and development.
Displaced peoples are especially vulnerable to food insecurity. According to the UNHCR, the numbers of people who fled their homes because of armed conflict and persecution reached to an unprecedented 100 million people around the world in 2022. Displaced people because of armed conflict have been the most significant contributors to rising food insecurity rates in recent decades.
Koc argues that food insecurity should be seen beyond the food system’s failure in food provisioning but located in the failure of the key institutions of power in modern societies: international agencies of governance, the nation states, and the market. Using examples from recent cases of armed conflict from Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine and Palestine this paper examines how armed conflicts contribute to food insecurity at the national, regional and global levels.
Sustainable intensification
Pretty, J. 2006. “Resource-Conserving Agriculture Increases Yields in Developing Countries.” Environ. Sci. Technol. 40 (4): 1114–19.
Pretty, J., et al. 2018a. “Global Assessment of Agricultural System Redesign for Sustainable Intensification.” Nature Sustainability (1): 441–46.
Pretty, J. 2018b. “Intensification for Redesigned and Sustainable Agricultural Systems.” Science (362): eaav0294.
Pretty, J.A. 2020. “Assessment of the Growth in Social Groups for Sustainable Agriculture and Land Management.” Global Sustainability (3): E23.
Pretty, J., & Bharucha, Z. 2014. “Sustainable Intensification in Agricultural Systems.” Annals of Botany 114 (8): 1571–96.
Pretty, J., Toulmin, C., & Williams S., 2011. “Sustainable Intensification in Africa Agriculture.” International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability 9(1): 5–24.
