Cornett 1
Robyn Cornett
Philosophy of Food
Dr. Williams
8th December, 2014
World Food Aid: Are the United States Obligated to Contribute?
Many philosophers have debated whether or not the United States are obligated to contribute to a world food bank or directly donate food to developing and famine stricken nations. Being one of the most developed countries in the world, it wold seem logical for the U.S. to do such things, but how much is it really hurting the U.S? I will argue that the United States are not morally obligated to feed people in developing or famine stricken nations through the means of sustainability and the same problems on American soil.
It is commonly known that the less developed nations of the world face problems in food shortage or distribution of food. This is also true in the richest of nations. While America is seen to be one of the world’s leading nations in development, they too suffer from a great deal of starvation. According to the World Food Program, 854 million people suffer from hunger on a regular basis. Of these 854 million, between 2008 and 2013, 48.8-50.2 million American people struggled annually with food insecure households. In 2007, one in seven Americans faced hunger. If a nation is facing a large amount of hunger on it’s own soil, why should the be obligated to contribute to a world food bank or donating food to other countries? A large portion of this problem is poverty, but also the lack of distribution of food. Many places in America and other countries are considered food deserts—they lack access to fresh produce and healthy foods. This not only causes people to go without food, but also to suffer from having to travel large distances to obtain food, if they are capable of doing so. Even if a person can travel to gather food, often times they do not have them proper ways to store the food for extended periods of time. Not only are the people starving, they are also wasting some of the food they are able to get due to their poor economic situation. Amongst the issue with poverty is the increasing price of foods as the demand increases due to the need of other nations and exhaustion of resources, which leads me to my next topic, the objection of the idea that those in the affluent nations are in less need than those in underdeveloped nations.
Because the United States have the methods and means to produce a large amount of food does not mean that the food should be donated to those who do not have the resources. In Garret Hardin’s work “Lifeboat Ethics”, he states that even from biblical times, it has been suggested to teach the policy and transfer the wisdom from one nation to another. Instead of just giving the products of agriculture and food production to other nations, it would be more beneficial to teach the underdeveloped nations how to produce their own foods. Not only will this help both nations socially by providing more food, it will help the other nations develop economically by creating more jobs and a form of income for the nation through exports. The old saying “if you give a a man a fish, he eats for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime” is beginning to be implemented in Ethiopia. The Department of Rural Economy and Agriculture (DREA) has a strategic plan for 2014-2017 in Africa. Because most Africans still live in rural areas and depend on agriculture, the plan wishes to aid the nation in doubling their cereal yields which will create 100 million metric tons of extra food each year. Along with the extra food to alleviate poverty and hunger, it will also give Africa the option of exporting surplus which will aid in the economic development of the country. The dependency of Africa on imported foods through donations is growing and becoming unsustainable. The backbone of this plan is to improve rural infrastructures such as roads, water, and telecommunications to help the distribution of food. As imagined, the plan n can only take place through the support of other nations, so instead of giving just the food, it would be wise of United States to consider decreasing food contributions and begin giving aid for the improvement of infrastructures. Not only would this help the nations’ development, it would also prevent the exhaustion of America’s economic and natural resources.
Between 2000 and 2005, the price of U.S. wheat jumped from $94 per ton to $123 per ton while it currently is at a high $316 per ton. This impacts America’s ability to supply other countries with it’s leading export of wheat by cutting it in half, down to 2.4 million metric tons due to a thirty five percent increase in the cost of agriculture and its products in the last two years. In 2011, the United States exported 124,270,710 tons of wheat at $316 per ton. Unlike Canada, where the government can purchase up to fifty percent of food aid to developing countries, the U.S forbids such things and therefore does not receive any compensation for these exports. This relates to one of the leading problems in hunger among nations which is poverty. Now that Americans are having to pay higher prices for their own food produced in their country, they have less to spend on luxuries, which according to Peter Singer in “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” is a reason to be condemned. He states that those who “indulge in luxury instead of giving to famine relief” should be condemned because the suffering of the starving is greater than the American desire for commodities. Americans are suffering from the support they give to other nations, but the real question is, where will this lead both the United States and those dependent on them?
In reference to Garrett Hardin’s lifeboat metaphor, “each lifeboat is effectively limited in capacity.” A lifeboat, an individual nation, can only sustain a certain number of inhabitants who are dependent on the goods it can produce. If the United States were to continually give to other nations and/or a world food bank, not only is the American population depending on the decreasing land space, so are other nations, overloading the lifeboat. Hardin continues to argue that if the lifeboat becomes too crowded, the entire thing will sink, hindering the original inhabitants and those who were added. In comparison, he is saying that if the U.S continues to grow in size while giving aid to other countries, not only will America suffer, so will those whom it is supporting, leading to an even greater disaster. This again supports the idea that it is best to teach other nations to provide themselves with food. By having more nations in a state able to donate to world food banks, it is a more equally distributed task making it less stressful on certain countries. For those who contribute largely and rarely receive aid from world food banks, it is exhausting to the nation’s economy and natural resources. On the other end of the spectrum, those who continually draw from the food banks never have the need to learn to fend for themselves in food production. This would turn the food bank into an “emergency only” source meaning that if a natural disaster such as a tsunami or hurricane strikes a nation wiping out a large portion of resources at once, they can use the world food bank until order can be restored.
Now that it has been shown how much the United States is suffering from giving food aid to other countries, are they morally obligated to help other nations? I believe not. Not only are there a large number of hunger stricken people in American alone, it is also costing them a large sum of money to aid other countries while also adding to the exhaustion of natural resources. It is still unknown to me as to why an idea over 2,000 years old of spreading wisdom instead of wealth to other nations is just beginning to be implemented in the area of food production. By giving those who are under developed the methods to grow and process their own foods, we not only help solve there issue of starvation, but help them become more developed socially and economically by the production of jobs and the ability to have greater exports as a source of income. So the next time you see the sad commercial with the starving child or hear someone say that it is disrespectful to not finish your meal when their are starving children in another country, take a second to think about Joseph’s biblical idea and those suffering in our own country.
Bibliography
“AUC’s Department of Rural Economy and Agriculture Strategic Plan”. 2014.
“Food and Agriculture Foundation of the United Nations”. 2013.
“Food Research and Action Center: SNAP/Food Stamp Participation”. 2010.
Hardin, Garrett. “Lifeboat Ethics”. 1974.
Singer, Peter. “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”. 1972.
“Worldwatch Institute: Increase in Grain Prices Affects U.S. Food Donations”. 2014.