http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/04/04/176154775/a-political-war-brews-over-food-for-peace-aid-program
So, the US is spending lots of valuable time and resources gathering food here, packaging, and shipping it out. This raises some problems...
Time. Sometimes it's getting there after people are dead. Too late. You lose.
Resources. It's a safe and reasonable bet that fewer resources could be used by sending groups to harvest local food sources, or at least closer to the situation, and send food from nearby.
The actual food. We're sending food that's indigenous to our nation, food that we are familiar with. I had no idea this was a problem until I met a young man from Africa while an undergrad at ODU. His family lived in Africa in a refugee came for years. They got big bags of grain....which they had no way to cook. Very few families had pots, regular access to fire, water, etc. So pretty much....they were eating raw grain, and fighting for it. There was never enough. He said they quite frequently shredded the canvas bags in came in, as well as cardboard boxes some of the supplies came in, mixed it with the grain, and ate it all. No shit.
So there's that....read the article, think, contemplate. Any solutions come to mind? Post em in the comments! Start a discussion...share, link, etc.
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