{"id":22829,"date":"2026-07-02T13:36:56","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T17:36:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=22829"},"modified":"2026-07-02T13:41:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T17:41:18","slug":"our-foreign-aid-programs-have-killed-people-for-50-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/02\/our-foreign-aid-programs-have-killed-people-for-50-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Foreign Aid Programs Have Killed People for 50+ Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

While Elon Musk<\/strong> is being criticized for his role in slashing the budget of the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID), our foreign aid programs have been killing people for more than 50 years.\u00a0 \u00a0American food aid has sabotaged foreign farmers since the 1960s, causing waves of bankruptcies and subverting foreign nations’ ability to feed themselves.\u00a0 I have been hammering this program since 1984.\u00a0 \u00a0Here’s a piece I wrote on how U.S. food aid bankrupts foreign farmers for the Wall Street Journal<\/strong> back in the Reagan era.\u00a0 The article concluded:\u00a0 “If this is our humanitarianism, God help the Third World if we ever decide to get rough with them.” In 1985, when I interviewed AID chief Peter McPherson, my questions enraged him and he started shouting and threw me out of his office.<\/p>\n

In 2013, I wrote a Wall Street Journal piece<\/strong><\/a> on how U.S. food\u00a0 “aid consistently wreaks havoc abroad. The Obama administration is pushing reforms that could slightly reduce the number of Third World farmers bushwhacked by American food dumped into their marketplaces.” But the Obama “fixes” were pitifully tepid.<\/p>\n

In 2016, I wrote a Wall Street Journal piece<\/strong><\/a> bashing the Obama administration’s decision to dump a million pounds of surplus peanuts on Haiti, ravaging that nation’s poor farmers.<\/p>\n

Here’s a screenshot of the 1984 piece. The text of the article is below the image.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal, July 2, 1984
\nFree Food Bankrupts Foreign Farmers<\/a>
\nBy James Bovard<\/h2>\n

Food for Peace is probably our most harmful foreign aid<\/strong>
\nprogram<\/strong>. Each year the federal government dumps more than $1
\nbillion of surplus commodities onto Third World countries.
\nThis food occasionally feeds people who otherwise would go
\nhungry, but the usual effect is to undercut poor farmers and
\ndisrupt local agricultural markets.<\/p>\n

Food for Peace has always been a bit of a mongrel program,
\nserving whatever purpose politicians choose at that moment.
\nUntil 1980, it gave surplus tobacco to poor countries! The
\nprogram currently helps avert starvation by giving away
\nAgriculture Department surplus cotton. Food for Peace (also
\nknown as PL 480) is jointly administered by the USDA and the
\nAgency for International Development, and the two often
\nquarrel.<\/p>\n

Food for Peace originally was designed in 1954 to help the
\nEisenhower administration get rid of embarrassingly large
\nfarm surpluses. The original law included a cargo preference
\nprovision requiring half of all PL 480 food to be shipped in
\nAmerican-flag ships. This provision supposedly helps ensure a
\nhealthy merchant marine for national defense emergencies. But
\na 1983 Senate Agriculture Committee report concluded: “Rather
\nthan encouraging the development of improved U.S. vessels,
\nthe program encourages the continued use of semi-obsolete and
\neven unsafe vessels which are of little use for commercial or
\ndefense purposes.” Due to inflated U.S. shipping costs, cargo
\npreference adds more than $50 million to the program’s cost.<\/p>\n

Many Americans have the impression that most U.S. food
\nrelief goes to areas hit by foreign disasters or emergencies.
\nActually, only 14% of PL 480 food went to such areas last
\nyear, and even that aid is often counterproductive,
\ndisrupting local economies and discouraging governments from
\nreforming destructive agricultural policies. The usual
\nroutine for other PL 480 programs, as one congressional
\nstaffer described it, is for an AID person to come into a
\ncountry, find an excuse for a project and then continue it
\nfor 15 years, regardless of need or results. Many such
\nprograms have fed the same people for more than a decade,
\nthereby permanently decreasing the demand for locally
\nproduced food and creating an entrenched welfare class.<\/p>\n

In the 1950s and 1960s, massive U.S. wheat dumping in
\nIndia disrupted the country’s agricultural market and
\nbankrupted thousands of Indian farmers. George Dunlop, chief
\nof staff of the Senate Agriculture Committee, speculated that
\nfood aid may have been responsible for millions of Indians
\nstarving. Mr. Dunlop and Reagan administration officials
\ninsist that the program no longer puts farmers in recipient
\ncountries out of business, but the evidence does not flatter
\ntheir contention.<\/p>\n

PL 480 is still often run with the goal of giving away the<\/strong>
\nmost food in the shortest time<\/strong>. The Kansas City Times
\nreported that in 1982 the Peruvian agriculture minister
\npleaded with USDA not to send his country any more rice,
\nfearing that it would glut the local market and drive down
\nprices for struggling farmers. But the U.S. rice lobby turned
\nup the heat on USDA, and the Peruvian government was told
\nthat it could either have the rice or no food at all.<\/p>\n

The same type of policy fiascos occur in sub-Sahara
\nAfrica, which received 14% of PL 480 donations in 1983. Most
\nAfrican governments force farmers to sell their crops to the
\ngovernment at a third to a half of their market value.
\nPer-capita food production in Africa has decreased 20% since
\n1960, and PL 480 donations have helped governments perpetuate
\nthe destructive status quo. The easier it is for governments
\nto get welfare, the less incentive they have to reform their
\nown policies.<\/p>\n

Haiti is another country wounded by U.S. free foo<\/strong>d. A
\ndevelopment consultant told the House Subcommittee on Foreign
\nOperations a few years ago, “Farmers in Haiti are known to
\nnot even bring their crops to market the week that [PL 480
\nfood] is distributed since they are unable to get a fair
\nprice while whole bags of U.S. food are being sold.” Where
\nthere is a sharp increase in the supply of food, prices will
\ninevitably fall and local farmers will be hurt.<\/p>\n

PL 480 also is often ineffective in international
\ndisasters when a speedy response is essential. People have
\nstarved while bureaucrats haggled and decrepit boats puttered
\nacross the ocean.<\/p>\n

In 1976 an earthquake hit Guatemala, killing 23,000 people
\nand leaving over a million homeless. But just prior to the
\ndisaster, the country had harvested one of the largest wheat
\ncrops on record, and food was plentiful. Yet the U.S. dumped
\n27,000 metric tons of wheat on the country. The U.S. “gift”
\nknocked the bottom out of the local grain markets and made it
\nharder for villages to recover. The Guatemalan government
\nfinally had to forbid the importation of any more basic
\ngrains.<\/p>\n

PL 480 aid is divided under three titles. Title I sells
\nfood to countries at concessional prices, roughly 65% lower
\nthan market price. Title II donates food to be used for local
\ndevelopment projects and for malnourished groups. Title III
\ndonates food but only on condition that countries are making
\nan effort to improve their development policies. Very few
\ncountries have applied for Title III conditional aid, as they
\nknow they will get free or cheap food regardless of what
\npolicies they follow.<\/p>\n

Roughly a quarter of Title II donations go for the Food
\nfor Work (FFW) program. FFW recipients receive food in return
\nfor working on labor intensive projects. These projects are
\nsupposed to be designed to increase agricultural
\nproductivity.<\/p>\n

But workers often labor to improve the private property of
\ngovernment officials or of large landowners. An AID analysis
\nof FFW in Bangladesh, which has the largest number of FFW
\nprojects, concluded that FFW “results in increased inequity”
\nand “strengthens the exploitive semi-feudal system which now
\ncontrols most aspects of the village life. . . .” Workers
\nwere underpaid, and the government of Bangladesh used U.S.
\nwheat for other purposes and paid laborers with poor quality,
\ninfested wheat. A 1975 Food and Agriculture Organization
\nreport concluded that FFW projects in Haiti “have extremely
\ndeleterious effects on the peasant communities and cause
\ngreat erosion of the reservoir of mutual service
\nrelationships of the traditional peasantry.”<\/p>\n

In many areas, rural residents neglect their own farms to
\ncollect generous amounts of food for doing little or no work
\non government-supervised projects. FFW has, like food stamps
\nin the U.S., contributed to a shortage of agricultural labor
\nat harvest time.<\/p>\n

Much of the donated food is targeted for school food or
\nhealth programs for mothers and their children. AID claims
\nthat this prevents displacement of local production and
\nreduces malnutrition. But an AID audit of targeted assistance
\nin India, which has the largest program, concluded, “The
\nmaternal\/child health program has not improved nutrition and
\nthe school feeding program has had no impact on increasing
\nschool enrollment or reducing the drop-out rate. . . .”
\nAnother AID audit concluded that “program methodology in
\nKenya (and elsewhere in Africa) creates an unlimited demand
\nfor food. . . . The long-term feeding programs in the same
\nareas for 10 years or more have great potential for food
\nproduction and family planning disincentives. . . .” In other
\ncountries, such as Haiti, the local AID office has never even
\nattempted to determine the impact of PL 480 food on
\nrecipients’ nutritional status.<\/p>\n

If the USDA really believes that giving food to the poor
\nhas no effect on local farmers, then presumably Agriculture
\nSecretary John Block would not object if the European
\nEconomic Community sent over a billion pounds of surplus
\ncheese to feed all the hungry Americans they hear about.<\/p>\n

Recipient governments often sell PL 480 food and use the
\nproceeds for various doubtful purposes, such as buying arms.
\nMauritius insisted on receiving only the highest quality rice
\n— and then used the donated food for its hotel trade. In
\nother cases, food aid is squandered because of government
\nprice controls. According to one former AID official, bread
\nis so cheap in Egypt that American PL 480 wheat is baked into
\nloaves and fed to donkeys.<\/p>\n

When food aid does not undercut local farmers, it often<\/strong>
\nreplaces food that the recipient country would have purchased<\/strong>
\non international markets anyway<\/strong>. One analysis found that
\nalmost 90% of PL 480 donations to Brazil simply replaced
\ngrain that nation would have purchased from the U.S. and
\nother grain exporters. The General Accounting Office reports
\nthat many countries have decreased their commercial purchases
\nfrom the U.S. while continuing to receive PL 480 handouts.<\/p>\n

Not only does PL 480 hurt Third World farmers, it also
\nhelps perpetuate floundering U.S. agricultural policies. USDA
\nprice supports have led to the government accumulating a huge
\nwheat stockpile and billions of pounds of slowly rotting
\ndairy products. PL 480 gives congressmen a<\/strong>
\nrespectable-looking vehicle for disposing of the evidence of<\/strong>
\nour farm policy failures.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Opposition to food aid is widespread among even liberal
\nactivists — the same groups that often favor handouts on
\nprinciple. The Canadian Council for International Cooperation
\nrecommends that “except in cases of emergencies, food aid be
\nabolished.” Laurence R. Simon of OxfamAmerica, a liberal
\nself-help development agency, concludes: “We haven’t seen
\nconvincing evidence that food aid can be effectively employed
\nas a development resource.” Tony Jackson, author of “Against
\nthe Grain” and a former AID consultant, believes that food
\naid almost never does more good than harm, except during
\ndisaster relief.<\/p>\n

PL 480’s main beneficiaries are American farmers and the
\nU.S. merchant marine. PL 480 has bankrupted poor farmers,<\/strong>
\nencouraged the welfare ethic in recipient countries and<\/strong>
\nsquandered billions of tax dollars.<\/strong> If this is our
\nhumanitarianism, God help the Third World if we ever decide
\nto get rough with them.
\n.<\/p>\n

TAGLINE:\u00a0Mr. Bovard is a free-lance writer in Washington.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/strong>\"aid<\/a>\u00a0April 30, 2013<\/p>\n

How \u2018Food for Peace\u2019 Hurts Foreign Farmers<\/strong><\/a><\/h2>\n

For a half-century the program has done more to feed special interests than help the hungry<\/em>.<\/p>\n

By JAMES BOVARD<\/p>\n

The United States government is the world\u2019s largest food donor but its aid consistently wreaks havoc abroad. The Obama administration is pushing reforms that could slightly reduce the number of Third World farmers bushwhacked by American food dumped into their marketplaces. But there is scant enthusiasm in Washington for any fix of a program that is beloved by many special interests.<\/p>\n

The U.S. launched the Food for Peace program in 1954 during the Eisenhower administration, largely to dispose of embarrassing crop surpluses that had been encouraged by federal farm programs. To carry out Food for Peace, the U.S. Department of Agriculture buys crops grown by American farmers, has the food processed or bagged by U.S. companies, and then pays to send them overseas in U.S.-flagged ships. The annual cost to taxpayers? Last year, it was roughly $1.5 billion.<\/p>\n

At least 25% of all U.S. food aid must be shipped from Great Lakes ports, per congressional mandate. This provides a steady stream of (taxpayer) revenue for American port towns and merchant seamen. Once the goods arrive at their destination, the U.S. Agency for International Development often takes charge or bestows the food on private relief organizations.<\/p>\n

Because Food for Peace is structured to focus primarily on U.S. interests, it has long been notorious for putting some of the world\u2019s poorest farmers out of business. Sen. Harry Bellmon (R., Okla.) crafted a legislative amendment in 1977 that required USAID and the Department of Agriculture to certify that food aid would not devastate farmers or destabilize markets in recipient countries. But whom does Uncle Sam entrust to assure that donations won\u2019t pummel local farmers? In most cases, a foreign government or private-relief organization hoping to gain a tremendous free-food windfall from Washington.<\/p>\n

To USAID\u2019s credit, in 2008 it began tapping an independent consulting firm, Fintrac Inc., to recommend prudent donation levels. Nevertheless, in 2010 USAID approved sending almost three times as much rice to Liberia as Fintrac recommended. That same year the agency approved massive wheat shipments for Burundi and Sierra Leone, even though Fintrac recommended against it.<\/p>\n

The Department of Agriculture is even more reckless. In 2008, it approved sending 30 times more soybean meal to Armenia than the agency\u2019s own staff experts recommended.<\/p>\n

Since 1985, USAID has permitted recipients to \u201cmonetize\u201d U.S. food aid\u2014selling all or part of it in local markets and using the proceeds to bankroll their preferred projects. U.S.-donated food is routinely sold in local markets for much less than prevailing prices. In 2002-03, a deluge of food aid in Malawi caused local corn prices to plunge by 60%. Mozambique wheat prices nose-dived in 2002 after USAID and the Department of Agriculture simultaneously \u201cflooded the market,\u201d according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Haitian farmers were similarly whipsawed after the U.S. and other nations bombarded the island with free food after the 2010 earthquake there.<\/p>\n

In a speech this month at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, Rajiv Shah, head of USAID since Dec. 31, 2009, called the monetization of food aid \u201cinefficient and sometimes counterproductive,\u201d saying that in some cases \u201cevidence has indicated that this practice actually hurts the communities we seek to help.\u201d Meanwhile, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization cautions that monetization often results in \u201cdestroying local farm prices\u201d and CARE, one of the world\u2019s largest relief organizations, boycotts all monetization projects.<\/p>\n

The Obama administration is proposing to end monetization and instead give more cash to foreign governments and private-relief organizations to buy and distribute food locally and finance preferred projects. The administration also advocates trimming the percentage of the Food for Peace program\u2019s budget spent purchasing and transporting U.S. food to 55% from the current 75%.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, the administration\u2019s proposals are facing staunch opposition from the farm lobby, relief organizations addicted to manna from USAID, and the merchant-marine lobby.<\/p>\n

Yet Mr. Shah says USAID estimates that the proposed reforms would allow U.S. aid to feed up to four million more people per year. The agency is also touting a new program to distribute debit cards to allow refugees and others to shop for meals at local stores\u2014similar to how the food-stamp program operates domestically.<\/p>\n

The goal should not be to maximize the number of foreigners eating out of the U.S. government\u2019s hand. When an impoverished foreign nation is struck by an unforeseen disaster, a temporary burst of food aid\u2014public or private\u2014can effectively save lives.<\/p>\n

But in recent decades, the definition of \u201cemergency\u201d has been stretched to provide long-term feeding for people who are hungry largely due to their own government\u2019s abuses. Most emergency food aid funding is actually spent on multiyear feeding programs that foster dependence and can produce epidemics of scurvy and beriberi because of grain-heavy diets.<\/p>\n

The resistance that the Obama administration\u2019s modest reforms are facing epitomizes how Congress and special interests don\u2019t care how much harm food aid does abroad. Unfortunately, gross negligence has long been Food for Peace\u2019s trademark.<\/p>\n

Tagline:\u00a0Mr. Bovard, a former World Bank consultant, is the author, most recently, of an e-book memoir, \u201cPublic Policy Hooligan<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wall Street Journal<\/a>, May 26, 2016<\/h2>\n

A Subsidy as Shameful as They Come<\/strong><\/h2>\n

By
\nJames Bovard<\/p>\n

The U.S. has paid for a million pounds of peanuts it can\u2019t use. Solution: Dump them on Haiti\u2014causing a disaster for its farmers.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Obama administration\u2019s plan to dump a million pounds of surplus peanuts into Haiti at no cost has sparked a firestorm from humanitarian groups across the hemisphere. Sixty organizations have signed a letter to the Agriculture Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development warning that the donation \u201ccould potentially set off a series of devastating consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haiti has about 150,000 peanut farmers. The industry is \u201ca huge source of livelihood\u201d for up to 500,000 people,\u00a0 Claire Gilbert of Grassroots International told NPR, \u201cespecially women, if you include the supply chains that process the peanuts.\u201d One of the leaders of Haiti\u2019s largest rural organization, the Peasant Movement of Papaye, denounced the peanut donation as \u201ca plan of death\u201d for the country\u2019s farmers.<\/p>\n

That may sound histrionic, but American aid has a sordid record. In 1979 a development consultant told a congressional committee: \u201cFarmers in Haiti are known to not even bring their crops to market the week that [food aid] is distributed since they are unable to get a fair price while whole bags of U.S. food are being sold.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1984, 10 people were killed in Haiti when government troops fired on crowds rioting to protest corruption in the U.S. food donation program.<\/p>\n

Why couldn\u2019t peanuts have a similar effect? \u201cUSDA has not done any market analysis in Haiti,\u201d\u00a0 Raymond Offenheiser, the president of Oxfam America, recently wrote in the Hill newspaper, \u201cto ensure that this project does not interfere with local markets and does not reduce the opportunities for Haitian peanut farmers to sell their crop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haiti has become far more dependent on food aid than it was a few decades ago. After the 2010 earthquake, Haiti\u2019s president,\u00a0 Ren\u00e9 Pr\u00e9val, pleaded with the U.S. to \u201cstop sending food aid so that our economy can recover and create jobs.\u201d Former President\u00a0 Bill Clinton publicly apologized the same year for the devastating impact of subsidized U.S. rice imports: \u201cI have to live every day with the consequences of the lost capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people, because of what I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Agriculture Department claims that the peanuts won\u2019t hurt Haitian farmers because they will be packaged in one-ounce bags that \u201care to be consumed at school only,\u201d as a government press secretary told NPR. Will the U.S. post guards at school doors to prevent \u201cleakage\u201d (the spokesperson\u2019s term) into Haitian markets? After all, Haiti is one of the most corrupt nations on earth and foreign aid is routinely pilfered. Some activists also fear that this million pounds of peanuts will prove to be only the first shipment.<\/p>\n

The real culprit here are federal peanut programs with an almost 80-year record as one of Washington\u2019s most flagrant boondoggles. Subsidies have encouraged farmers to overproduce and then dump surplus peanuts on the USDA, which winds up stuck with hundreds of millions of pounds.<\/p>\n

That food has to go somewhere, and the department sees Haiti as the ticket. Food-aid policies have long been driven not by altruism, but by bureaucratic desperation to dispose of the evidence of failed farm policies.<\/p>\n

When the U.S. peanut program was launched in the 1930s, the federal government gave favored farmers licenses to grow the legumes and outlawed anyone else from planting them. Investors wound up purchasing many of the licenses and renting them back to growers. Congress ended the peanut licensing scheme in 2002 with a $4 billion buyout that provided a windfall to license-holders.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers should have admitted then that there was no more justification for subsidizing peanuts than for propping up cashews or pecans, two crops that have thrived without handouts.<\/p>\n

Instead, Congress created a new peanut program and effectively permitted a grower to collect twice as much in federal subsidies as other farmers ($125,000 for peanuts and another $125,000 for other crops). The 2014 farm bill guaranteed peanut farmers high prices, which is why they boosted production by more than 20% last year, even as the value per pound has plunged.<\/p>\n

The cost of peanut subsidies is predicted to rise 10-fold between 2015 and next year, reaching $870 million\u2014which approaches the total farm value of the whole U.S. peanut crop itself. The USDA expects to spend up to $50 million a year to store and handle surplus peanuts, and industry experts are warning that federally-licensed warehouses might not have enough space to hold the next crop.<\/p>\n

The Haiti hubbub is simply the latest episode in a long history of peanut insanity in Washington. As long as congressmen can reap votes and campaign contributions from wrecking markets here and abroad, American goober policy will continue to be totally nuts.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bovard is the author of \u201cAttention Deficit Democracy<\/a>\u201d ( Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That 1984 piece spurred hostile letters to the editor:<\/p>\n

Here are a few hostile Letters to the Editor<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

7\/27\/84 Wall St. J. (Page Number Unavailable Online)
\n1984 WL-WSJ 223965
\nThe Wall Street Journal
\nCopyright (c) 1984, Dow Jones & Co., Inc.
\nFriday, July 27, 1984
\nLetters to the Editor: Does Food for Peace Stunt Growth?<\/p>\n

James Bovard’s “Free Food Bankrupts Foreign Farmers”
\n(editorial page, July 2) contains misconceptions regarding
\nthe Public Law 480 Food for Peace Program.<\/p>\n

PL 480 does not, as Mr. Bovard asserts, “undercut poor
\nfarmers and disrupt local agricultural markets.” When the
\nprogram was initiated in 1954, recipients included Germany,
\nFrance, Italy, Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece, Spain and Norway.
\nThe program did not destroy their agricultural economies and
\nthe will to grow food. In fact, several of these countries
\nnow contribute food through the EEC for similar programs.
\nAlso, a study by Dr. H.W. Singer of the University of Sussex
\nfound that in India — long the largest recipient of food aid
\n— “theoretical analysis gives no proof that food aid, if
\nproperly handled, has serious disincentive effects on food
\nproduction.”<\/p>\n

India illustrates the effectiveness of food for work
\nprograms. In 1976 CARE introduced FFW projects there. These
\nmostly involved soil conservation, flood protection,
\nirrigation and school construction. Initially 235,000
\nrecipients in hundreds of projects consumed 71,000 tons of PL
\n480 wheat. This program continued through 1979 and in its
\npeak year, 1977, had 1,180,000 recipients in food for work
\nactivities that resulted in the distribution of 297,000 tons
\nof wheat. CARE was able to end its participation when two
\nvery successful crop years made it possible for the
\nGovernment of India to take over the program with its own
\nresources. CARE’s food for work programs have now been made a
\nregular part of the Sixth Five-Year Plan. It is expected to
\ngenerate 300 million to 400 million mandays of work annually.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bovard said that the U.S. Agency for International
\nDevelopment in Haiti “has never attempted to determine the
\nimpact of PL 480 food on recipients’ nutritional status.”
\nActually such a study is being conducted by Joel Cotton for
\nAID and the first phase has been completed.<\/p>\n

Contrary to Mr. Bovard’s assertion, a study by Prof.
\nFrederick Bates of the University of Georgia showed that
\nthere was, indeed, a food shortage associated with the
\nearthquake in Guatemala in 1976. Also, instead of grain
\nprices dropping at the time, as Mr. Bovard claimed, prices
\nincreased. The Bates study was far more comprehensive and
\nrigorous than the impressionistic Jackson piece cited later
\nin the article by Mr. Bovard.<\/p>\n

Also, far from having food “dumped” on it, India today
\npurchases food when needed in the international commercial
\nmarket and is increasingly supplying its maternal\/child
\nhealth program and midday meal program from its own
\nresources. The government is scheduled to take over this
\nprogram completely within 10 years.<\/p>\n

Philip Johnston<\/p>\n

Executive Director<\/p>\n

CARE<\/p>\n

New York<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Public Law 480 embodies humanitarian, development, export
\npromotion, and foreign policy objectives. These objectives
\nhave been and are being met.<\/p>\n

Under Title I, contrary to Mr. Bovard’s understanding, the
\nU.S. provides long-term (20-40 years) credit at concessional
\ninterest rates (2% to 4%) to facilitate purchases of U.S.
\nagricultural output at market prices by friendly developing
\ncountries. The food is sold locally, with the proceeds used
\nto fund economic development. Since Title I generates local
\n(often non-convertible) currencies, it is difficult to see
\nhow, without taking the notion of fungibility to absurd
\nlengths, Mr. Bovard imagines these monies being used by
\ngovernments to buy arms.<\/p>\n

As to food production disincentives, the law requires the
\nSecretary of Agriculture to determine that distribution “will
\nnot result in a substantial disincentive to or interference
\nwith domestic production or marketing. . . .” Title I
\nagreements contain a series of “self-help measures,” tailored
\nto the situation of the recipient country, which spell out
\nspecific actions to be taken to foster economic development.
\nThese measures are not always easy or painless; they often
\nencourage price decontrol, market reliance, added attention
\nand resources to the private agriculture sector, and
\nelimination of consumer subsidies.<\/p>\n

Title I is highly prized by food-deficit developing
\ncountries that lack the foreign exchange to meet food needs
\nthrough normal commercial imports. The food deficit might be
\nchronic and self-reliance might be a generation away, even
\nwith the proper help. In other cases, a normally self-reliant
\ncountry may need short-term help to deal with a natural or
\nman-made disaster.<\/p>\n

Title II donates food to the world’s neediest. Even here,
\nthough, every effort is made to maximize the contribution to
\ndevelopment of this humanitarian program.<\/p>\n

Title III is similar to Title I, except that it calls for
\nadded policy reform or other developmental progress in
\nexchange for a multi-year food aid commitment and forgiveness
\nof the food-aid debt. Since the enactment of Title III,
\nhowever, Title I’s economic development conditions were
\ntoughened, and the difference between the developmental
\nimpact of the two Titles has lessened markedly.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bovard suggests that U.S. food aid has hampered
\nagricultural production overseas, and that somehow, without
\nfood aid, countries would be motivated to produce more
\ndomestically. The fact is that a real hunger problem exists
\nin the world today, which even Mr. Bovard cannot wish away.<\/p>\n

Food aid has not prevented the dramatic increase in food
\nproduction in the developing world over the past few decades.
\nPopulation, unfortunately, has increased even faster.
\nDeveloping countries’ import needs (commercial purchases plus
\nfood aid) total about 95 million tons per year. The U.S.
\nsells about 40 million tons to the developing world, and
\nprovides somewhat over five million tons in food aid. It is
\nhard to argue that the five million tons is a significant
\ndisincentive to domestic production.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Denis Lamb<\/p>\n

Deputy Assistant Secretary<\/p>\n

Trade and Commercial Affairs<\/p>\n

State Department<\/p>\n

Washington<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While Elon Musk is being criticized for his role in slashing the budget of the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID), our foreign aid programs have been killing people for more than 50 years.\u00a0 \u00a0American food aid has sabotaged foreign farmers since the 1960s, causing waves of bankruptcies and subverting foreign nations’ ability to feed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[489,4882,896,696,2876,856,1429,4885,4881,4884,4880],"class_list":["post-22829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-aid","tag-earthquake","tag-food-aid","tag-food-for-peace","tag-guatemala","tag-haiti","tag-john-block","tag-peter-mcpherson","tag-rice","tag-usaid","tag-wheat"],"yoast_head":"\nOur Foreign Aid Programs Have Killed People for 50+ Years - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"My 1984 Wall Street Journal piece on how U.S. food donations ravage foreign farmers.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/02\/our-foreign-aid-programs-have-killed-people-for-50-years\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Our Foreign Aid Programs Have Killed People for 50+ Years - 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