Word: aided
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...injection of western food aid into a poor economy hurts local farmers by depressing prices, even in an emergency. That makes it even harder for millions of small farmers to buy the high-priced fertilizer or fuel they need to compete. "The backbone of world agriculture is small farmers," says Joaquim von Braun, director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington. "We will only grow out of the food crisis if these people have access to markets...
...locked in talks over a mammoth bailout package, Bill Gates and Howard Buffett (Warren's oldest son) announced at the United Nations on Wednesday that their private foundations will plow more than $75 million into helping small farmers in Africa and Latin America to sell their crops as food aid - a move which could potentially overhaul the decades-old - and often criticized - global food aid system...
...Under a five-year pilot project called Purchase for Progress, the foundations will help 350,000 or so small farmers in 21 countries, most of them in Africa, to grow food for the U.N.'s World Food Program, the biggest food aid distributor in Africa. Rather than simply buying the farmers' crops outright, much of the money will go to teaching better farming methods, and to helping them store their crops in warehouses, plant higher-yield seeds, and transport their produce to customers. Those are all serious obstacles for poor farmers, many of whom find it almost impossible...
...show that not only do they have the means to produce but a market to sell it." Gates told reporters on Wednesday that he aimed to "transform the way small holders are able to get to market." And WFP executive director Josette Sheeran called it "a revolution in food aid...
...revolution is long overdue, say advocacy groups. Organizations such as Oxfam and the London-based think tank Overseas Development Institute are critical of traditional food aid programs because they depend so heavily on western agricultural producers, such as the U.S. and Europe, and fail to help farmers in poor countries. When a crisis hits, as it did in Ethiopia this summer, the WFP typically asks governments to donate millions in emergency funds to feed people. That help comes either in food supplies or in cash, which the organization then uses to buy huge quantities of rice, maize and other staples...