US to buy local grain for aid in Pakistan

[Bryan Corn]

http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009a/05/123640.htm

I think it is really good to see that the current administration is actually helping a situation rather than prolonging current problems or making them worse trying to 'look like they are helping.'

All too often, food aid undermines the local economy and devalues food produced in the area. Dumping free U.S. grain in impoverished areas has proven to do nothing toward a long-term goal in getting a population back on its feet. It only took 13 years to begin to put these ideas into practice:

http://www.fpif.org/briefs/vol1/agri.html

^^U.S. Foreign Agricultural Policy
Written by Gigi DiGiacomo, Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy (IATP)

[Christopher Bowers]

Appropriate and respectiveful foreign aid is a key to helping address local problems, and building relationship. Too often foreign aid explortted from one country to the other seems to have ulterior motives, or benefit for the donor.

[Martin Jones]

Thanks for your comments and the two informative web references. It is indeed inspiring to hear Secretary Clinton describe how some of our aid will be in the form of $$ to purchase locally grown, in-country produced grain and crops; to employ local citizens of Pakistan; and to assist other NGO's in their relief efforts.

The second web reference explains well what many don't understand about the destabilizing effect of "dumping" excess US wheat production onto other countries. It was a new concept to me until I heard a report on NPR a few years ago.

Humanitarian foreign aid given appropriately goes a long way towards furthering peace in the world. When the basic needs of others are met, they are less likely to turn to violence to get those needs met. Examples abound, from Greg Mortensen's Central Asia Institute, to Aprovecho stove teams, UNESCO, Rotary International, USAID. etc. And in 1988, a U.N. task force led by Norway's former prime minister Gro Harlem Bruntland found that the main cause of environmental destruction worldwide is poverty.