This question was asked at the Dropping Knowledge event on 9th
September by Amy Johnson, 32, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
We already have way more than enough food to feed the entire world. As it is huge amounts of food go to waste every year. The problem is not that there is not enough, but that the people in countries cannot afford it, and if their harvest fails they can’t afford to have it imported either.
Ah, so why don’t we give them this food that’s going to waste for free, we have no other use for it? Well, that would bankrupt the economies of the countries receiving the food. In those places many peoples livelihoods rely on the food industry; farming is the one of the most common occupations, and then people get employed to package, sell, collect or prepare the food the farmers grow.
Now imagine what would happen if suddenly there was loads of free food around. Why would people still BUY the produce grown in the country? They wouldn’t. As no one was buying he food the farmers would go bankrupt as they would make no money. As the food industry would make no money, and thus collapse, the other people payed to package, sell, collect, prepare, etc the food grown wouldn’t make any money either, as they would be out of a job or their employers couldn’t afford to pay them. Many, many people who previously had a job and enough money to survive would be much, much poorer. This would be especially bad considering in most third world countries the food industry is the main employer.
Thus giving third world countries free food would make the people even poorer.
Also it’d screw up the rest of the country too as the food industries are very important to the economy.
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Because many foreign governments are corrupt and if you were to donate food to a country, then that country’s military will seize it and say that their military needs it more than their civilians.
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It is a matter of logistics and knowledge of the need. The food maid be grown in USA or England, but the need is in Sudan, Africa, Ireland or even a back street in your town. Our culture seems to react to crisis, but what about the everyday life of some in need. That we ignore out of laziness or a feeling that the needy is only needy because they don’t do their part. I help when I see it and can and pray about it daily