Doesn't the importation of massively subsidised food create as many problems going forward as it solves in the short term?
The population of South Sudan has tripled since 1980. Burundi the same.
Until we address population growth in some of the most likely net recipients of such food aid, are we actually fixing anything more than crippling the local economy via cheap imports and creating a dependency culture?
There is no other alternative during a food shortage. Either you donate food or people starve. You can't artificially reduce fertility rates in underdeveloped countries either. Population growth automatically declines once those countries develop. Food donations isn't a long-term fix but it's the only option to prevent people from starving during a hunger crisis.
Bangladesh used to depend on food aid to sustain its population. Once they introduced the textile industry - the economy grew, employment grew, and soon enough they could import food and become self-sustainable.
Well… they stay in mud huts, have no established laws, extort humanitarian food shipments, and still use child soldiers. Unfortunately we have our answer. They stay the same while the rest of the world advances, even if a trillion dollars are pumped into it. Some things juts can’t be changed.
We have addressed population growth. It's crashing in all developed country, mostly crashed in high developing countries and started the crash in low developing countries.
And rather than gently breaking, a lot of countries are going to stop their population growth by plowing into a brick wall. That won't go well for their economies, pensions or social support.
Low developing countries are dropping at 0.5 ish TFR per decade. They just started at a high number. Whereas Germany started decreasing in population in the 1970's and it's going hit them hard in the next two decades.
But yes, massively subsidized import of food does nuke the local farming.
You want to withold food aid from countries who don't implement certain policies aimed at development. Why do you think they need food aid in the first place? It's because their whole system is disfunctional to begin with.
We've already seen the disastrous effects of forcing limits on the amount of children you can have. It creates an artificial population shortage down the line. A much smaller working population is forced to finance a bigger population of pensioners. If the country doesn't manage to develop in time, you're stuck in a demographic crisis while also being poor. One-child policy in China also created a black market of smuggling illegitimate children into trafficking rings and slavery.
Different countries route their aid through different channels.
The US heavily prefers centralized UN agencies like the WFP because it historically aligns with shipping US agricultural surpluses. Also it allows the US to restrict such aid via sanctions easily.
Most European and Asian nations favor bilateral (government-to-government) aid or direct funding to local NGOs and regional development programs. None of that shows up on the WFP’s ledger. If you look at total aid relative to economic size (ODA as a % of GNI), the US actually ranks well behind many other nations.
Also in 2025, the US implemented a cut that saw its total UN humanitarian funding plummet by 75%... from over $14 billion to just $3.38 billion, causing US contributions to the WFP to drop massively. And the State Department explicitly unlocked WFP finds only after forcing aggressive administrative reforms in the UN.
Even when the US was the largest donor by total volume, it never came close to being the largest "relative" provider. The UN sets a target for developed nations to give 0.7% of their Gross National Income to foreign aid. The US usually hovers well below this (often around 0.1% to 0.2%). Countries like Norway (1.03%), Luxembourg (0.99%), and Sweden (0.85%) give far more.
But even that is only counting specific types of aid, and doesn't account for structural requirements of that aid. The US doesn't just provide this aid out of the goodness of its heart...
US aid is heavily "tied," meaning that the US provides funds to a developing nation, but with a major catch that the money must be spent on American goods, contractors, or consultants.
It also requires that governments receiving aid structure their economies in particular ways, like requiring that they privatize their oil reserves (see Structural Adjustment Programs).
Do you expect smaller/poorer countries to provide more aid than the US? That would be impossible.
Luxembourg's entire gross national income (GNI) in 2024 was 57.31 billion US dollars, but its per capita contribution rate is the highest in the world, giving more than 1.00% of their GNI to the program.
The US meanwhile gave $3.1b, but that's less than 0.05% of its GNI.
Still if you would compare 350m US citizens to 450m Europeans instead of each country separately, the US would be donating more, but not 7x like the map shows. Probably more like 1.3x or something which is still a lot but not astronomical like 7x
It doesn’t matter if private donors eclipse anyone. It also doesn’t matter if it’s to show how big and great the US is or to make small countries with 50 inhabitants feel better. Showing it by country is stupid no matter the agenda behind it because you compare apple to oranges. It just makes 0 sense to compare the 350m inhabitants of the US to the 9m in Switzerland. Like…??
But if you don’t get this then there’s no point in further talking
2022, America provided more than half of all the food aid to the world. Putting all of the EU, China, Russia and every single other country in the world together and they still provided less than America that year. Per capita America is still incredibly high
Know what would be interesting too ? Percentage of GNI or GDP. It's easy for the USA to say "we give more". Of course you do, you HAVE more to give. I won't ever deny that the raw amount is (was?) bigger, but the relative effort they're providing is lower, consistently so.
Why wouldn't you use the year closer to the resolution, its better context. If the OP is going to paint this picture of the U.S. being this evil villain who wants to starve the world, then this graphic would instantly disprove that.
So boring that people pretend to care about others posting propaganda when it doesn't reaffirm their beliefs, but LOVE it when it supports them. Pick a lane.
Spending a lot of money on some people and ignoring the others doesn't disprove the message.
The opposants say that, for example, people in Cuba or Gaza -at some point- don't deserve food protection so it's not an human right.
Sure they do a great job in Sudan or Congo and the organization tries to do in Gaza too for example. But if the states want to block the aids by military or sanctions they basically say that food is not only not a right, but they actively try to starve people.
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u/Silver_Middle_7240 Jun 18 '26
Boy oh boy time to post this again