An Ethiopian solution to costly food aid

Food aid is now more expensive and difficult to procure. (Image: Anthony Mitchell/IRIN)

Globally, the World Food Program's (WFP) operational budget for 2008 has now risen to $3.4 billion - "an increase of $500 million to account for the increased price of food and transport alone," said WFP spokesman Robin Lodge. "This budget is just to cover our current assessed needs, and leaves nothing for unforeseen emergencies or the huge number of people who are now falling into the hunger trap as a result of the rising prices."

Food prices are expected to continue to rise for the foreseeable future as a result of surging global demand and reduced cereal stocks, partly on account of biofuel. Edward Clay, senior research associate at the Overseas Development Institute, a UK-based think-tank, noted that the situation called for a major re-think of food aid.

"Globalisation now means that the poor everywhere are affected. There is a need to ask how to anticipate a potentially much more volatile world food economy and this may require different institutional arrangements," he suggested. "How do we ensure that poor people and indeed poorer countries are not crowded out of world food markets?"

Read the full article.