WASHINGTON, June 2: The current strategy for providing food aid to the world’s poor, although well-intended, helps big firms and farmers of the rich donor nations more than it helps the starving millions, says a report released on Monday.

The report, released by the US Council on Foreign Relations, advocates a fundamental, structural change in the world food supply and agricultural production and warns that unless this is done, “starvation and malnutrition will become enduring features of the global landscape, sparking instability and anxiety for decades to come.”

Author Laurie Garrett describes the food aid as “a win-win situation” for the donor nations.

It quotes Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade as denouncing most of the United Nations’ system of aid, all of the top humanitarian relief NGOs, and specifically called for the demolition of the Food and Agriculture Organization, which he described as a “bottomless pit of money largely spent on its own functioning with very little effective operations on the ground.”

The food aid “supports their own agricultural industries, allows them to value the foods at extremely costly European and North American marketplace prices, sends cash to their shipping industries, and saves lives overseas,” notes Ms Garrett.

She then argues that while such a strategy may save lives during a crisis, it does not do so for decades to come.

“The real goal of food aid should be building local agricultural capacities, bringing dependency to an end,” she adds.

“Short-term famine relief efforts, including distribution of American- and European-grown crops, should be seen as emergency measures necessitated by failures in achievement of the larger goal, not as ends in themselves.”

“Despite growing demand for food aid, rising business, and transportation costs have contributed to a 52 per cent decline in average tonnage delivered over the last five years. These costs represent 65 per cent of total emergency food aid, highlighting the need to maximize its efficiency and effectiveness.”

The GAO assessment preceded recent escalations in food and energy costs, which have only worsened this paradigm.

Building on the GAO assessment, the CFR report points out that while the stated appraisal of food aid has increased; real, on-the ground value has declined, and shoved local production aside. It notes that nearly 100 per cent of American food aid comprises home-grown crops.

US laws require that a minimum of 75 per cent of all food aid must be in the form of American-grown crops, and all of it must be transported using US ships, planes, trains, or vehicles.

In other words, the cash spent on providing food aid to a poor nation represent rough valuations of government payments to American farmers, costs of maintaining grain reserves, packaging, and distribution prices.

Thus “the real winners in a US food aid programme are American agricultural companies,” which are “not presently in need of charity.”