How to feed the hungry

There's been quite a debate in humanitarian circles about the best way to deliver aid to hungry people. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) found that donating actual food to hungry countries costs on average 30% more than providing money to buy food.

Food is donated to crisis situations because many western countries produce more food than they use as a result of huge agricultural subsidies. Superficially, this makes sense. It seems quite obscene for developed countries to throw away food while people in poor countries are starving.

The problems occur with logistics. In order to deliver food aid, the food must be transported to ports, loaded on to ships, transported across oceans, loaded off ships and then delievered to the interior of countries that often have poor infrastructure. This not only costs a lot of money, but it takes a lot of time as well... often not arriving until it's too late.

If it arrives too late, it may flood a market that now has enough food (say, because of a late harvest) thus depressing prices for local agriculture.

By contrast, food is often available in neighboring countries or other countries in the region. That food would be much quicker and cheaper to deliver because of proximity. If money were donated to buy that food, it would also help farmers in those countries, who are often also poor.

Additionally, big donors are most generous with food aid when they have big surpluses, and that, by definition, tends to be when there is plenty of food around.

Clearly, the most common concern about giving money is the potential for corruption. While direct food aid can be diverted (for political reasons as is alleged in Zimbabwe and North Korea or sold on the black market), it's more difficult to divert than cash. However, there are certainly ways to ensure transparency with these donations, the same sort of methods used in other forms of direct aid. No reinventing the wheel is necessary.