Every December, Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” rings out at malls and holiday parties across the United States and the United Kingdom. But that earworm of a song was actually originally written in response to the devastating famine in Ethiopia in the early 1980s—and it’s far from the famine’s only legacy. Both the hunger and the relief effort were so enormous that they defined a generation, and forced a major reevaluation of how food aid works. After Ethiopia, many countries decided that handing out cash or vouchers was a cheaper, quicker, and more effective way to feed the hungry, as opposed to literally giving food. Experts began to focus on whether the food itself was the right kind—whether it contained the right mix of nutrients to help malnourished kids recover. And an increasing number of governments refocused their aid efforts exclusively on emergency relief, rather than development.
The United States, however, remained committed to giving food as aid. This episode, we talk to Barry Riley, the author of The Political History of American Food Aid: An Uneasy Benevolence, in order to understand why the United States overcame its initial reluctance to feeding the hungry overseas, and explore the impact of its more recent career as the world’s largest food-aid donor. From surplus grain stored in retired battleships to Cold War maneuvers, America’s history has set up its enduring role as the largest provider of food, rather than money. Meanwhile, we check in with the seasoned food-aid professionals Bea Rogers and Patrick Webb at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University to investigate what the latest science can tell us about the best way to feed hungry people.
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