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Category: Giving

Published October 1, 2013

“The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” Takes on Food Aid

Last Tuesday, my Cornell colleague, coauthor, and former advisor Chris Barrett was on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart discussing food aid. The video segment in which he appeared managed to make a very serious point — the effectiveness of the Food for Peace program is greatly undermined by the shipping lobby — while remaining highly satirical, and you can watch it here:

[comedycentral 429252]

According to an interview Chris gave to the Cornell Daily Sun, the taping of his part of the segment took about four hours.

For those of you who are not familiar with his work, Chris has worked on just about every aspect of food security, and I’d be hard pressed to pinpoint what he is most famous for. The above video, however, is about his work on food aid, the culmination of which has been his 2005 book with Dan Maxwell, Food Aid After Fifty Years.

For a more popular treatment of the weaknesses of US food aid because of the political economy landscape, I suggest reading Kilman and Thurow’s Enough: Why the World’s Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty.

Published January 30, 2012

Who Wins and Who Loses During Food Crises?

In a very good article in the latest issue of Science, Jo Swinnen and one of his coauthors explain that, as with many other changes in economic circumstances, rising food prices are a boon to some people and a bane to others. Here is the summary:

Spikes in food prices have pushed food security to the top of the global policy agenda. Price increases have mixed effects on poverty and hunger: They increase the cost of food for consumers but increase incomes of farmers, who represent the bulk of the world’s poor. Net effects will differ depending on whether poor households or countries buy or import, or sell or export food (infrastructure, institutions, and market imperfections will play roles, as well). Policies to influence prices imply winners and losers, not just between rich and poor, but also among the poor. These nuances are too often absent in public debate, to the detriment of policy-making. Moreover, the arguments put forward today, that high food prices generally hurt the poor, are in contrast with those put forward a few years ago, that low food prices were hurting the poor.

Put simply, when food prices rise, food producers benefit and food consumers lose out. But while the media used to causally link low food prices to poverty and hunger, it was high food prices instead that were blamed for poverty and hunger during the food crises of 2008 and of 2010-2011.

Continue readingWho Wins and Who Loses During Food Crises?
Published October 23, 2011

Earthquake in Turkey: Where to Give (Updated)

A 7.2-magnitude earthquake hit Eastern Turkey today. You can read the the LA Times‘ account here. As of writing, 60 89 138 217 people are confirmed dead, but as many as 1,000 people may have died.

How and where to donate? Here is how you can contribute:

  • If you are in the US, you can text GIVE TURKEY to 80088 to automatically donate $10 to Global Giving’s Turkey Earthquake Relief Fund. Message and data rates may apply. Their terms of service are here.
  • You can also visit Global Giving’s Turkey Earthquake Relief Fund directly by clicking here.

UPDATE: On Yahoo! Answers, someone has questioned the legitimacy of this blog post or of Global Giving. Just so everyone knows: I am not getting anything out of this (other than the knowledge that I have provided a way for people to contribute and, of course, page views). And if you want to know more about Global Giving, see the Wiki entry here, and see the SourceWatch entry here.

I don’t know if the International Committee of the Red Cross will set up an option to give directly for Turkey over the coming few days. If they do, they are always a good option.

I’m sure there are many other good options. Please feel free to link to them in the comments.

UPDATE: And just to show that I put my money where my mouth is, here is a screen capture of the receipt for my own donation (click on the picture to see it in a readable size):