Give Him a Fishing Net He'll Learn to Fish, Not Beg
We had a lazy brunch at a placed called B'Shara's next to Rte 5 in West Springfield today, and I got a chance to read the NY Times. A story about food aid provided an interesting twist...and in the piece former President Bill Clinton admitted to having 'never thought of that while I was president." He credited Pres. Bush for pushing a plan to buy food aid in poor countries.
The subject is about the logic and expense of sending food grown in the US overseas to help out poor and starving people. The original Food for Peace program, put forth during the Eisenhower years, called for sending surplus grain,costly to store here, overseas to hungry people. The law required us to only use food grown in the US.
Over the years, however, this has enriched transport companies and four huge agribusiness companies. It turns out that because of shipping costs, the same amount of money that once fed 100 million now feeds just 70 million. It just makes more sense to buy food in the poor countries instead of shipping ours over.
"Marv Baldwin, the head of Foods Resource Bank, said his nonprofit raises farm animals and grows crops on 7,000 acres in the US. They donate land, labor and the use of equipment and help raise cash for fertilizer and fuel. But instead of shipping the crops and animals to poor lands, the farmers sell them in the US. Then the Food Resource Bank spends the money from those sales to buy seeds, fertilizer, tools and other goods so that poor farmers can grow their own food.
The subject is about the logic and expense of sending food grown in the US overseas to help out poor and starving people. The original Food for Peace program, put forth during the Eisenhower years, called for sending surplus grain,costly to store here, overseas to hungry people. The law required us to only use food grown in the US.
Over the years, however, this has enriched transport companies and four huge agribusiness companies. It turns out that because of shipping costs, the same amount of money that once fed 100 million now feeds just 70 million. It just makes more sense to buy food in the poor countries instead of shipping ours over.
"Marv Baldwin, the head of Foods Resource Bank, said his nonprofit raises farm animals and grows crops on 7,000 acres in the US. They donate land, labor and the use of equipment and help raise cash for fertilizer and fuel. But instead of shipping the crops and animals to poor lands, the farmers sell them in the US. Then the Food Resource Bank spends the money from those sales to buy seeds, fertilizer, tools and other goods so that poor farmers can grow their own food.
posted by Max Hartshorne at 1:40 PM
1 Comments:
Max, glad you had a chance to read the Times article. We also had a nice article in the Wall Street Journal the next day that might be of interest to you. We have over 1000 US farmers and 1000's of other non-farmers running community growing projects here in the US to support farmers in the developing world so they can grow their own food... we're always looking for new community minded people to start a new project and we need some NE farmers ... any takers at your cafe? Hope to have coffee with you sometime - Marv Baldwin, President, Foods Resource Bank 312.287.9690 or marv@foodsresourcebank.org
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