Unlike other countries' food aid programs, which send cash to buy food locally, the taxpayer-funded USAID Food for Peace program ships commodities grown stateside to famine-affected parts of the world. According to USAID, only 40 percent of the program's bduget is spent on food itself. The rest goes to U.S.-based processors, which are owned by agribusinesses, and shippers based at U.S. ports. Over the last 10 years the cost of food has risen even as fewer people benefit from food aid shipments.
The amount of money that USAID spends to ship a ton of food has steadily risen. Two factors have contributed to a rise in costs: a law that requires shippers to use expensive U.S.-flagged vessels and a spike in global food costs in 2008.
Africa gets the highest volume of U.S. food aid, but a ton of food reaches fewer people in Africa than in other parts of the world because of high transportation costs and a complex transit network.
Due in part to rising food prices, the costs of delivering food to a person have doubled in the last decade. The program reaches fewer people for more money.
Source: United States Agency for International Development. Credit: Darla Cameron & Ajai Sreevatsan