Two years after changing food aid rules to reduce the required Canadian content to half of all food aid shipments, the Canadian International Development Agency is floating the idea of not requiring any of the food aid to be purchased in Canada.
The proposal, which was the subject of recent consultations with some industry players, is receiving mixed reactions.
The primary goal would be to buy more food from developing countries that are closer to the recipient country, reducing costs and speeding up deliveries while giving third world farmers a new market, CIDA officials told the meeting.
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“I think Canadian farmers approve of the idea of using our food aid funds to source locally and to support peasant farmers,” Grain Growers of Canada executive director Richard Phillips said Jan. 25.
“The concern we raised is that we don’t want purchases in Canada replaced with purchases from other developed countries.”
Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen, who attended the consultation, said the issue of completely untying food aid from Canadian food production will be discussed at the CFA annual meeting in late February.
He said there was concern that CIDA would take a policy change as an opportunity to buy cheaper grain from Canada’s subsidized competitors.
“I told them that would not wash with Canadian farmers,” said Friesen.
National Farmers Union president Stewart Wells, who was not invited to the meeting, was even more caustic.
He said CIDA has not provided any proof that the move two years ago from a requirement that 90 percent of food aid be sourced in Canada to 50 percent has increased sales by developing country farmers.
“The hype is around the idea that this is a boost for poor country farmers but there is no record keeping to prove that is true,” he said.
“There is no way to know whether this untied aid is simply coming off another Cargill boat in the bay.”
Several at the meeting said CIDA officials were vague about why they are proposing a total untying of aid from Canadian purchases but there were suspicions that the impetus is pressure from the World Trade Organization that is trying to end the ability of countries to use food aid as a form of subsidy to their farmers.
Chris Vervaet, CFA trade policy analyst, said the biggest issue at the consultation was whether Canada should untie its food aid purchases if the United States continues to insist that 100 percent of its food aid must be sourced in the U.S.
“Overall, the mood was that if the U.S. doesn’t move from its 100 percent position, why should we?”
At the Winnipeg-based Canadian Foodgrains Bank, senor policy adviser Stuart Clark said that is the wrong comparison. Many other countries are moving to less tied aid.
He said it is a World Food Program and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development initiative rather than WTO.
“Generally, more flexibility we see as a good thing,” he said.
But the church-based food aid agency would prefer that the new rules on Canadian content be optional rather than mandatory because the food bank wants to continue to include Canadian-grown product in its aid efforts.
“It is an important connection for our members and producers.”
Phillips said a problem with requiring product from the donor country is that it often is not appropriate to the local diet in the aid-receiving country.
“I think we have to be sensitive to the cultural appropriateness of our food aid,” he said.
“I have seen cases where food that is not part of the local diet was sent and was not used.”
