The federal government did something unusual last week, announcing an
increase in food aid and foreign food security funding.
It was aimed specifically at Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, but the
May 27 announcement by international co-operation minister Susan Whelan
was a rare event. Since 1995, Canada’s food aid spending has fallen
sharply.
Whelan, who is the daughter of former agriculture minister Eugene
Whelan, said Ottawa will spend an additional $10.5 million over five
years to help Ethiopia’s famine disaster prevention system, to produce
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and distribute a high-protein corn variety to low-income families in
the Horn and to distribute food to poor farmers in Ethiopia.
“Hunger and malnutrition are widespread in Ethiopia,” she said during a
visit to the country.
“Food security and health and nutrition are critical development
issues.”
Aid groups who have criticized the Canadian International Development
Agency’s de-emphasis on food aid and agriculture said it is unclear if
Whelan is moving to put food back into the CIDA priority list.
“It’s clear she has an interest in agriculture. And we know she is
asking questions within CIDA about food and agriculture. But we do not
yet have a handle on whether she will change things,” said Jim
Cornelius, executive director of the Canadian Foodgrains Bank.
Foodgrains bank leaders plan to meet Whelan June 7 at CIDA offices in
Gatineau, Que., to try to get a fix on her plans.
When appointed in January, she inherited an agency that had stressed
“soft” development issues such as education, health, gender equality
and medicine in recent years. Some aid groups argue that an adequate
diet is the first fundamental requirement for health, learning and
development.
Meanwhile, Canada’s status as a food-surplus country soon will put it
under increased United Nations pressure to send more food to southern
Africa.
On May 29, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization issued a bulletin
from Rome warning that as many as 10 million people in southern Africa
need help and need it soon.
It is the worst food crisis in the area since a prolonged drought a
decade ago.
“Millions of people are on the brink of starvation and they will face
grave food shortage as early as June, which would continue up to the
next main harvest in April 2003,” the FAO bulletin said.
“Over the next year, nearly four million tonnes of food will need to
be imported to meet the minimum food needs of the sub-region’s
population. Almost 10 million people in the famine-threatened countries
need immediate emergency food assistance of some 1.2 million tonnes.”
The FAO blamed the problems on drought, economic problems and political
decisions.
In Zimbabwe, for example, the government’s campaign to uproot the
country’s white commercial farmers so their land can be turned over to
black “war veterans” has combined with drought to produce plummeting
food production in what recently was a food-exporting country.
“Unless international food assistance is provided urgently and
adequately, there will be a serious famine and loss of life in the
coming months,” the FAO said.
“The overall cereal deficit is a staggering 1.5 million tonnes, even
taking into account anticipated commercial imports and pledged food
aid. Some six million people in rural and urban areas are estimated to
need emergency food aid.”
