International food aid programs are being slashed, and the problems they addressed aren’t going away. A recent study in Nature suggests that current government cuts by the richest countries to international food aid programs will have reverberating effects for decades, particularly on children.
In light of this changing landscape, what does the future of food aid look like?
Some of the people working hardest to answer this question convened last week at the George Washington University, where the Global Food Institute (GFI) co-hosted the second annual International Food Aid Showcase: Shared Learning and Looking Ahead in close partnership with Counterpart International and the Alliance to End Hunger.
The event included keynote speakers, panels, and a showcase with booths and tables where participants shared innovations, products, and research from their work around international food aid.
GFI affiliate faculty members Caitlin Grady and Erica Gralla, Associate Professors in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and Maryam Z. Deloffre, Associate Professor of International Affairs and Director of GW’s Humanitarian Action Initiative, hosted an interactive booth to gather feedback on their multi-unit rapid response research project. The team is examining both the value of international food aid and the potential impacts of eliminating it. Insights gathered will support the development of their data collection tool, set to launch in the coming weeks, to inform more effective global food aid policy.
“This room is filled with individuals and organizations who've dedicated their careers to meeting the needs of others,” said GFI Director Stacy Dean in opening remarks at the eventsummit. “Whether you're a farmer, a funder, a food company, whether you're in operations or policy, you chose to do the extraordinary work of meeting the needs of others. It is a life of service. It is one that has probably resulted in some of you making unimaginable sacrifices to ensure that others could eat. You show up to make a difference, and you've shown up today to make a difference.”
More than 750 million people worldwide, including 300 million children, are dealing with acute food insecurity, said keynote speaker Eric Mitchell, president of the Alliance to End Hunger. The numbers are staggering, but they’re more than a statistic, he said. Each of those hundreds of millions is a person: a parent skipping meals to feed their children, a child wasting away in spite of their families’ sacrifices, and “entire communities on the brink.”
The problems that cause food insecurity are complex, and so the solutions will necessarily be complex too, Mitchell said, urging the audience to consider the interlocking systems behind the hunger crisis.
“Hunger is not just about food. It's about systems,” Mitchell said. “It's about power, inequality, climate, economics and conflict. Hunger is also about the need to address peace and stability around the world.”
Eric Mitchell, president of Alliance to End Hunger. (William Atkins/GW Today)
In two panels, experts from the industry, agriculture, research, industry, and nonprofit sectors worlds discussed the changes to their professional landscapes and shared ideas and strategies for moving forward.
Those who believe food aid is crucial—for a smarter, more secure world, as well as a healthier and more equitable one—need to find more resonant ways to tell those stories, panelists said. It’s key, for instance, to move away from narratives focused on giving and receiving, which may evoke a cycle of dependence, and focus instead on how food aid is a way to develop mutually beneficial partnerships between governments and between people.
“Food assistance should serve as a bridge, ‘from aid to trade,’ supporting immediate humanitarian relief while building the foundations for long-term resilience,” said panelist Patrick King, a farmer himself and a representative of the U.S. Dry Bean Council.
If approached without an eye to this partnership model, food aid can be counterproductive or even have an unintentionally devastating effect on local economies, panelists said. If aid organizations don’t prioritize input from local leaders, farmers and other community members, they may send crops to a region with soil in which they can’t grow, or a food type to a community where for cultural or health reasons it won’t be eaten.
Panelist Chris Greene, CEO of nonprofit Meds and Food for Kids, retold a cautionary tale from the Haitian food crisis in the 1990s, during which international organizations shipped rice to the country by way of assistance. But there was already a local Haitian agricultural sector producing rice. The imported grain flooded the market, and local producers never recovered.
“It's really hard to build trust if, in trying to help somebody, you accidentally, unintentionally undermine local systems,” Greene said. “You want to have the right people at the table, because if the right people are at the table, they can help ask those questions.”
That’s also the case for nutrition education, said panelist A. Ozzie Abaye, a professor at Virginia Tech and expert on crop diversification. She is an enthusiastic proponent of introducing mung beans into the agricultural economies of countries dealing with high malnutrition rates. The nutritious, drought-resistant crop, popular in Asia, has a quick 60-day cycle from planting to harvest and can be used in home cooking as well as sold. When Abaye and her team met with farmers in Senegal, where her current project is based, many agreed to find space and time for this promising, low-commitment new crop.
“I didn't go to this village and say ‘You have to grow mung bean, it’s good for you,’” Abaye said. “It was really their decision.”
But farmers and families who aren’t familiar with mung beans may struggle to integrate them into their diet, which is why Abaye and her team started developing strategies to encourage adoption. The team partnered with local schools to develop a plant science curriculum, featuring—of course—the mung bean at its center.
They also produced short, animated videos, designed to be watched on a phone, that teach cooking techniques and recipes. The curriculum needed to be aligned with Senegalese tastes and preferences and also to be intentional about its optics, Abaye said. For instance, one video featured a white hand stirring a pot as part of a demonstration, which bewildered watchers: Whose hand were they looking at? Once Animators changed the color of the hand was changed to brown, and the video made more sense.
Success depended on involving everyone, Abaye said, from farmers and teachers to students and local government. “Involve the village. Everyone in the village.”
