We must thank immensely CARE for this effort. The issue of subsidy has received only deaf hears from 'Powers that Be' in the Northern Pole. We are all witnesses to the thoughtless deadlocking of WTO negotiations which tends to put this in the front burner. The subsidized food to us in Africa evokes mixed reactions. First, the multinationals came despoiling the natural land meant to plant their conservative, natural and unscientific foods through its ever inreasing apetite to extract natural resources. In the process farmers and the young farmers became jobless with cheap foreign foods dumped on them. To make ends meet they escape to the same lands which albeit should take implied responsibility for their emigration and they are met with being criminalised as illegal immigrants. For the remainders who were either unlucky to successfully jump the fence or not exposesd to it at all, they are forced to remained unemployed at home battling with powerless corrrupt regimes that cannot provide jobs and the results internal conflicts. The agric subsidy may not be the only reason for this woes but at least directly proportional to some of the constituent factors causing violence here.

Adesina, Nigeria

"Looting Africa: The Economics of Exploitation"

plus corporations just plain rule the world
http://www.poclad.org

Not the mention all the dirty tricks such as the CIA does on the orders of US presidents like John Stockwell wrote about in "In Search of Enemies". imf, world bank, etc..

Iwarrior...noone is behind Mugabe except the mass of th e Zimbabwean people...Try to be better informed. See my links above.

This is very timely; my sister just returned from a trip to Africa with a different organization, and she is having to decompress and recover from the awful things she saw in the villages where they used to receive US Aid but now the children are starving. In her jeep, they had a package of stale crackers they were about to throw out, but some kids saw it and cried "Biscuit! Biscuit!" so they gave it to them. These kids were ravenous and soon crackers were all over the ground and they ate every last little crumb out of the dirt. Later, a child asked my sister, "How can the U.S. afford a war in Iraq but they can't afford to send food anymore?"

Hi, Charity is NOT the answer anyway.

Only the mass political will of concerned citizens will have a lasting impact.
See what is being done to this end at Http://members.aol.com/hungerzero and at
the URI Feinstein Center for a Hunger Free America. Thanks in advance. Steve Maciel.

I agree with wdmax3. Charity should never be profitable. Most corporations never give a dime unless they receive a dollar in some form, in return. I am a little weary of the give a fish - teach a man to fish analogty, however. What most pampered Americans do NOT understand is that in most poverty-stricken countries and areas, the people already know HOW to fish, they do not have the money to buy poles, boats or nets to fish with. How American to beat someone down and then blame them for their being down.

I guess the best thing to do would to cut off all aid to Africa. They could then develop on their own.

What is going on is a continuation of the Cecil-Rhodes while colonization, black genocide policy.
The old Apartheid regime still has its money, is invested both inside and outside South Africa (including in North America), and includes the excessively rich DeBeers Corporation (child of Rhodes).
Zimbabwe is targeted because it was once named for Rhodes, and Southern Rhodesia was the last symbol of Rhodes' murderous and greedy British South Africa Company.
The Pro-Nazi Apartheid/Boers/Broederbond are P.O.ed because they had to relinquish overt rule of South Africa, but they haven't really ever done so. Incidentally, they are good friends of Pat Roberston of the 700 Club and William F Buckley of the Firing Line, and continue to work with the same political machinery, which incidentally props up the Bush Regime even though some of them don't like Bush anymore because he is too stupid to be as skillfully sneaky as they.

Genocide of Africa is on the agenda of the International Corporate Fascist Machine of which Bush is the most glaringly crass and ignorant representative.
The Fascist Machine believes there is not enough Living Space (Lebensraum) for themselves and their friends. They lust over the natural resources of Africa, and seek to kill Africans along with Arabs and Jews sitting on coveted oilfields.
Don't forget Africa is Very Rich, still today, in oil and diamonds and gold and copper and platinum.
The Fascist Machine has intentionally ignored and tried to deny Global Warming, continued to use Dinosaur Technology Oil and make gluttonous amounts of money from it, and kill off millions to make room for themselves, which they consider the Master Race (what a joke), now more defined by economic than racial status.... 'To the aggressive and predatory and opportunistic go the spoils'... Cave-men dressed in gold and cocaine dust.
Africans have gotten wise to this mess in recent years, and reclaimed privatized (foreign corporate controlled) armies, telecommunications companies, news media. But they must compete with literal Neo-Colonizers.
Now, Hello Americans!! Wake Up! The same thing is happening internally to us, and we have stupidly complied.... privatization, centralized corporate control, only leads to more dehumanization, poverty, genocide... the poor razed down just like American Indians in North America were the 19th century by the oil and railroad Robber Barons (including Bushes, Stanfords, Rockefellers), American Indians in South America in earlier centuries by the Hapsburg Catholic political hypocrisy machine, and Africa by Rhodes and his British, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish counterparts.
The U.S. Peace Corps must be de-corporatized and restored to its original stated intentions (it was ruined by Nixon and the Bushes and Reago-Bushes), or Americans will continued to be branded as colonizers as well.
The Rich Fascist Scum (Bush, Berlusconi, Tha-Milk-Snatcher and heirs, maybe Sarkosconi too) believe in a philosophy of their continued greed and extravagance, the need for genocide to get rid of anyone they don't need or like.
Woodrow Wilson and Eleanor Roosevelt and John Kennedy knew this and did what they could to make amends and treat other nations with respect. But the Ignorant Provincial Bushes and their like (and their Reagan-puppet) revert to murderous the Robber-Baron mentality and rape and pillage as they please.
As Americans, we have got to get the American Fascist machine under control so we do not end up suffering the fate the Nazis and Fascists brought German and Italy and Japan in 1944-1945, where ordinary citizens suffered the consequences of actions of the ruthless dictators who controlled them.
Just as a child cannot bully and plunder forever, so the spiritually-impaired (some supposedly 'Christian') Fascists ruling in Washington with Bush, and surfacing again in Europe, will eventually meet their 'Waterloo', and the sooner the better for All Earth's inhabitants.
If we allow them to continue, those of us living in nations being controlled and manipulated by the Neo-Fascists may have to pay a perhaps deserved price like ordinary Germans and Japanese did in 1945, ordinary Italians did in 1944.
As Americans, and particularly American politicians and leaders of conscience, it is our responsibility to do whatever we can to put a stop to the inhumane plunder and abuse of countries with less power and money A.S.A.P.
It is time for the wealthy and extravagant to share the wealth and come to terms with their spiritual responsibility to exercise compassion for all beings, or else deal with the consequences from a much higher Universal authority than any bloated-egoed politician with big banks and corporations propping him up and implementing policies of greed and murder in a mad frenzy of power- and money-lust.
Time for the resurrected stuffed-shirt 'Aristocracy' and their ilk to finally realize their innate humanity along with the rest of us, and to stop living like offensive stuffed pigs with 'attitude'.

The totalitarian regime that controls the US empire is racist to the core. They seem to enjoy keeping people of color down. They also seem to be terrified of the idea of Nations in Africa uniting and working together - it could threaten the miserable American empire.
-------------------------------

"The lords of the financial war have put the planet under the scalpel of organized economic destruction. They attack the normative power of the States, challenge the sovereignty of the people, subvert democracy, wreak havoc on nature, destroy human beings and their freedoms. The liberalization of the economy, the "invisible hand" of the market, is their way of dealing with the universe; the maximalization of profit is the way it works. I call this practice and this cosmogony structural violence.

The order of the current world is not only murderous, it is also absurd. It kills, destroys, slaughters, but it does so for no other reason than the desire for maximum profit for some cosmocrats who are driven by an obsession for power and unlimited greed. ...Bush, Sharon, Putin? Lackeys, henchmen..."

Jean Ziegler - author of "Empire of Shame"
http://www.counterpunch.org/accardo12202005.html

The article focused on US aid to Africa but it is true of any region that receives food aid of this kind. Local producers are undermined. Kudos to Care for the recognition and courage to change course. The best way to truly help a nation avoid starvation is to help it build it's own food production system.

Finally, someone is approaching the heart of the matter– sustainability! What next? GMOs?

Newlight
Maui

Finally, someone is approaching the heart of the matter-- sustainability! What next? GMOs?

Newlight
Maui

I keep saying this. Africa should be given reparations, Her debts should be forgiven, and everyone aside from black Africans should get out and stay the heck out of there. Any technology regarding food production or disease prevention/elimination would be given to them too of course.

This is what makes me sick about Africa. On hand you have people trying to exploit them, which has been the case for as long as anyone can remember. Then you have all of these people that want to "help", all of these do-gooders who just hug some little African kids, give them some food and medicine, and feel better about themselves. Or they try to Westernize them.

Oh, let's all sing "Do They Know It's Christmas?", like their all little forest animals. Like they care that it's Christmas.

Bono will fix everything!!! Or some other POP STAR who thinks he's Jesus Christ!!! Then he can pat himself on the back and return to his decadent lifestyle.

Let's have a big concert! Or a dinner!

I apologize for being so cynical about all of this. You raise all the money you want, and it's a drop in the bucket really. Whatever is raised gets stolen or tied up somehow.

The imperial powers created Africa's misery, they should make restitution. Behind every Mugabe and Amin there have been a bunch of sneering white guys.

Thank you, CARE.

The headline states, U.S. food aid is 'wrecking' Africa. I doubt that is so, I'm certain our charitable food aid isn't helping, but wrecking Africa is a giant over- statement.

You left out the part where it states that local farmers are loosing to this type of program. Let the local farmers support their own. Then where needed, supply aid!!! This is exactly the type of bs that helps to destroys an economy. Which is how our government/globalist control other nations in need. Same as in parts of Russia. The farmers in parts of that country have tons of crop that rot in containers ready for market because they run out of funds for fuel to get it to market. They sit in trucks unable to get it to market after harvest. This is food that could feed millions that no one gives any concern to. Tell me why we don't help out when it comes to issues like this!?!

Charity should never be profitable.

Charities these days can only be as profitable as the nations involved allow them to be. They now are as tied up into bureaucratic bs and the growing sanctions placed upon them as these globalist take control of every aspect of our lives as they have/can.

This is relative to our own problems as far as manufacturing. Where we now depend on other countries to make everything for us, we now support them as we die as a nation unable to support our own working class. As we have become the largest exporter of raw materials, only to come back to us as a product. Where we once were the importers for our own products. Take a good look at Japan. A nation with virtually no raw materials. Yet they as an average have a higher average of banked money then the average American. Simply because of they way they do business and conduct imports and exports. We on average are some 28,000 per individual in debt. They, some 100,000 in the good. Hell, we even sell our trash to other countries that our products are made of or come back to us in. See the whole picture, not just what is being placed in front of you!!!

Try reading this article by Stephe Gowans on Zimbabwe...what you ARENT learning from the Corpse media
http://www.raceandhistory.com/Zimbabwe/2007/2303.html

Bligh, you seem to to be woefully misinformed...perhaps thats because you places faith in media like th Independent and The Guardian, both of which have been demonising Mugabe...Try the following site for a different perspective:
http://www.raceandhistory.com/Zimbabwe/

The use of a zimbabwe photo by the not so Independent is a psychological tactic...a part of the deliberate campaign buy neocolonial govts and their media stooges to demonise a country that is going its own way and not serving western interests...Think Venezuela...and how Chavez gets demonised by the same media.

US food aid has always been a strategic arm of the US empire...They used it to try to get Zambia to accept GM grain...Zambia refused causing the Evil Empire to go into paroxyms.
2. Mugabe is not a maniac, he is one of the most principalled leaders in Africa today.BUT he is also not a lickspittle to western interests.
Dont be fooled, as Bligh has been, by the wretched media. You can learn more about Zimbabwe at the following site:
http://www.raceandhistory.com/Zimbabwe/
Go read Stephen Gowans excellent article;
http://www.raceandhistory.com/Zimbabwe/2007/2303.html
or this interview:
http://www.raceandhistory.com/historicalviews/2005/1504.html

DONT BE FOOLED BY THE CORPSE MEDIA

I think that it is ironic that the picture accompanying the story was of Zimbabwean children receiving food aid. Zimbabwe has always been a net EXPORTER of food until that maniac Mugumbe seized the farms and turned them over to his cronies. Now the people starve.

It sure is refreshing to see people seeing through the propaganda that surrounds the US agribusiness export industry, and the sham that most US foreign aid entails.

In most cases, US 'foreign aid' is simply a giveaway to US corporate interests, since the foreign aid is earmarked for purchases from US agribusiness (or military weapons) corporations. The foreign aid is just a mechanism that US business interests use to invade other economies and begin the process of stripping assets.

Africa is being hit hard by global warming, and this trend is set to continue. Real aid would include supporting renewable energy production, but look at the World Bank's record in Africa - $4 billion for a Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline - and oil development in the region has produced a crisis in regions including Darfur and the Nigerian Delta.

Even with all these problems, Africa is in a unique position - they have plenty of sun, and they could potentially leapfrog the 20th century fossil fuel industrial revolution and go right into a solar-and-wind-powered renewable energy future.

Similarly, African agriculture can bypass the lies and myths of the petrochemical fueled "Green Revolution" and go straight to modern fossil fuel-free sustainable agriculture practices, using solar-powered farm equipment. If they manage that, they might be able to also produce small quantities of sustainable biofuels.

However, they need to get the exploitative corporate interests out of their countries - and that means getting rid of any involvement with the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO, the US Export-Import agencies, and the global investment banks.

Not to mention that most of the food being sent over wouldnt be given to a dog here at home

I worked for Care a few years ago and I am surprised that CARE-USA has made the decision to purchase food in neighbouring countries for its targeted relief programmes.

This strategy is a quantum leap in Care management thinking. Scarce money might buy more, employment opportunities could open, and fiscal controls perhaps become manageable.

In other words "shrinkage". A polite word for scamming off the top might mean that charitable organizations will at last be seen to serve the people they are, or have formerly, exploited.

For many years humanitarian aid programmes have ill-served the desperately exploited people in some African and Asian countries.

The non-negotiable conditions for food varied from doner countries access to natural resources, arms supplies, religious conversion, the dumping of old food for a tax write-off in the donor country, and so on. The war lords of suffering look like angels-of-mercy when after crushing local people they then control foreign aid donations.

The unsubtle policy of rich nations offering "our food aid for some local political advantage" in regions of great suffering and need has always seemed to me to be offensive: in my view a most cruel form of exploitation.

But welcome change is afoot:

WELL DONE CARE-USA, MAY OTHER AGENCIES FOLLOW YOUR INITIATIVE!

I guess that are sending bunk food to Africa much like they send DDT ( which is banned here as unsafe )to developing countries to put on their crops.
I have news for you...most of the food on our supermarket shelves is unsafe.

This is why we should all be supporting and buying locally grown organic foods.
I know it is more expensive but it is safe and also tastes better.

The rest of the world has boycotted our Frankenfoods as being unsafe. GMO corn etc. is the basis for all our cereals, chips, etc.

So stop buying the cereal fillers and put the money toward wholesome food.

Get thee to your local farmers market and support the good people who really care about what we put on the table.
And look on the internet for information about GMO corn. You will be appalled I am sure.

You will not only be having a delicious meal you will be making a political statement.

I know because I am a small organic farmer.

Oh...And whie you're at it plant a small vegetable garden of your own. You can start with some tomatoes in a pot on your porch.

Cheers!

Lily

Take a look at the Food Stamp program in this country,
take another look at how the CIA used some people in Southeast Asia then brought them here. Once here see how these same people had do use Food Stamps but could not eat the American food ( as we in this country could not just go there and live on their food right away). End line is we used the people, brought them here used them for cheap labor and killed off many of the older ones. So consider that the tip of the iceberg.

Thanks for adding that iowairish. I would like to support local African farmers as well, and give them a permanent exit from poverty. To keep these people in poverty under the guise of "charity" is a grave crime. Way to go Care!

Two comments. First, Old Goat touched on another very important component of the food crisis in "less developed" countries (but, in my experience, far nicer places to live than this hell-hole called the U.S!) Many times, the only seeds that farmers in these countries can afford to buy are the GMO seeds that are, surprise surprise, subsidised by corporate agribusiness. Often touted as the saviour for African farmers, these seeds only do more damage because, in order to get the yeilds that they are told they should get, the farmers have to put chemical fertilisers and herbacides and insecticides on their already poor quality land. (Chemicals, of course, that they have to pay yet mor money for!) Add that to the changing weather patterns (i.e. floods that come at the wrong times and drought when there should be rain) and the problems these farmers face are immense!

EXCELLENT first step, Care. But much much much more needs to be done.

Second: From the article: "Care's decision has led to a rift with some of the biggest US charities, including World Vision ... " For those of you who don't know, World Vision's one and only reason for existence is to win converts to that &*#&% Christianity which has brought so much harm into the world. No wonder there's a rift - the best way to get converts is to keep them poor and offer them food. It's the oldest trick in the book. Converting is preferable to death by starvation. And I speak from experience. I have worked with these World Vision folks. Some of the meanest spirited people around. And Bush supports to the last.

Bill Clinton zealously pushed NAFTA through in 1993, resulting in the US dumping subsidized food on the Mexican market just long enough to turn Mexican farmers into the undocumented workers that are now trying to stay alive hanging drywall, picking fruit, installing flooring and doing other jobs in the US.

Perhaps W or his sucessor could push an African NAFTA through and finish off the African farmers. After all, they would probably rather hang drywall in Dallas than grow corn in Kenya.

this is a tangent but related

Yesterday Brazil's National Commission on Biosecurity (CTNBio) approved Monsanto's transgenic corn 'Guardian', (resisent to insects) by one vote over the necessary 14; one abstention, one against and six walkouts in protest. It goes to the National Council on Biosecurity - if there are no questions it will be approved and be on the market in two years.

Care's view of needed changes in food aid is great. These changes are supported by many farmers however, and farm based groups like the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. It's just common decency.

On food or farm subsidies such as corn, however, the article gives the mainstream media distortion line and not an accurate description of the problem. The Farm Bill work has already started and it's late for progressive groups to try to get up to speed on this. I say that because too many progressive groups still are spreading false information on this. They still don't understand the core Commodity Title issue.

The problem is low market prices, which is different than the suggestion that farmers are overpaid so they'll grow more corn. Low market prices subsidize the processors who produce cheap corn sugars that contribute to obesity. Low market prices destroy farmers in Africa and elsewhere.

There is no national interest in exporting farm commodities (corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton, rice) at below our cost of production, ongoing for decades. There is no justification for that policy, yet Nixon gave it strong support, Reagan too, and it was part of the Republican Contract for America "Freedom to Farm Act," vetoed, then signed by Clinton. But it has also been supported by many Democrats, including both Senate and House Ag committees. Selling at a loss only benefits agribusinese buyers of commodities, not America. Harkin & Gephardt, with Daschle and Wellstone used to support raising market prices, but they all switched over to low prices and subsidies.

It's not a farm lobby that gets this through congress. In the 1960s the National Farmers Organization fought against the low prices. In the 1970s the American Agriculture had their tractors on the mall. On and on through the farm crisis of the 80s, fighting Freedom to Farm in the 1990s, and on into the 21st century US farmers have been on the front lines on this. It's good progressives are getting involved in the farm bill, but do your homework. Here's a pdf that's one of the best places to start. It's called "Crisis By Design," http://www.iatp.org/iatp/publications.cfm?accountID=258&refID=48644 and shows what farmers have been doing on this and what to do about it longer term, to answer wdmax3's question, above. And as the title says, it has been intentional, and that is documented. It's not unintentional as Bread for the World and others have claimed.

It's agribusiness commodity buyers. Cargill alone probably gets a billion a year in benefits just on corn exports. Then add the other commodities and their domestic processing and their foreign processing of cheap foreign commodities, because prices are driven down over there by our farm bill and our dominance as price leader in export markets.

We need to revive and update the old Harkin Gephardt Bill of the 1980s and early 1990s. It manages supply, puts a floor under prices to stop the cheap corn sugar and below cost exports, and sets up reserves to protect consumers and processors from skyrocketing prices from shortages. The National Family Farm Coalition has these Commodity Title answers in their Food from Family Farms Act, http://www.nffc.net/issues/fnf/fnf_13.htm

The headline states, U.S. food aid is 'wrecking' Africa. I doubt that is so, I'm certain our charitable food aid isn't helping, but wrecking Africa is a giant over- statement.

Almost all charities are shams, designed to fill the pockets of a few, they are just like church dontions. Africa is being wrecked by the various 'in control' governments or warlords, just like our government is wrecking America.

Give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime.

Charities do an honorable job taking care of people that need immediate attention. This of course is a double edged sword that can do harm in the long run. Dependence on foreign aid can wreck havoc on a nation's people.

I have no solution for this dire problem, but it seems that most of the time our government and corporations are doing more harm than good.

Charity should never be profitable.

Why would we want revolution to happen there? We need to make sure that our corporations can bribe the corrupt govts there so that they can buy up all the land and not allow the locals to have their own land, thus forcing the locals to work the land (I'm lookin at you, Starbucks) for $0.03/hr. Plus, an unstable govt=easy control for us over African oil.

After all, they're all terrorists, right?

To Care:

Hip, Hip, Hurray
Hip, Hip, Hurray
Hip, Hip, Hurray

Care has got it right. Kudos.

I have a friend whose family in Africa has benefited from this change!

Hopefully more will get the message

This corrupt government knows that as long as they continue to export our surplus crops, they can...

A) continue to subsidize and thus control US agriculture.
B) manipulate global food prices.
C) destroy markets for local farmers, forcing foreclosures
D) buy up foreclosed land to sustain US controlled corporate agribusiness.

Thanks for the help America!

Africa will be 'saved' when genuine revolution happens within the countries. Foreign government aid, given to corrupt governments, without checks and balances, serves no purpose. There must be equality between the sexes too- equal access and encouragement for education. Without this, there is no such thing as sustainable development, or 'saving'.

"Stop Trying To 'Save' Africa" By Uzodinma Iweala
Sunday, July 15, 2007

look this up for an african's take on 'aid'. she will open your eyes to american and world hubris toward "third world" countries.

I many times have wanted to cry. Some people honestly want to help those in need.
I live in Sapa, Vietnam. I teach and try to understand the culture of the "Minority People" who live there. Yet, their food is the safest to eat and free of chemicals. Things are done the "old fashioned way." I hope that the "Old Fasioned way" of food production outlives the attempts to destroy it.
My most pressing problem at the moment is trying to make the people undestand that bottled water is not the answer. All you need - as any outdoors person knows - is a water purifier. Activated carbon, and then various other layers through which the water passes to become good drinking water.
They believe that boiling water is the answer. To an extent, it is. But, the agent orange and other larger molucular structures will not pass through the first ceramic filter, and activated carbon - for anyone who has any knowledge of chemistry - will grab a hold of many, many other chemicals. And the the process continues in a natural way.
Yes. Local food. No massive industry.
Let's get back to basics. Shit might not smell so good, but it is a natural fertilizer. That is why we let the goats come in and eat what we have cut by hand. We all gain. The sheep and the land.
I believe this used to be husbandry

read Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel" to see why this has been going on for millennia.
how harsh is it to say if you can't feed don't breed?
The problem lies in a bioregion that can't possibly support the appetite of the residents, and the expectation that others will fill the void (an idea that might bite our fat american butts pretty soon...)

U.S Doesn't care about it's own people let alone people on another continent.
Only reasons the U.S would do anything to help anyone is if there is money to be made doing it. I am often embarrassed and ashamed to say that I live here.

~Future~