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Reform in the international food aid regime: the role of consensual knowledge

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Raymond F. Hopkins
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The principles and norms adopted by the regime governing food aid in the 1950s have changed substantially during the subsequent three decades. Explaining the changes necessarily includes analyzing the efforts of an international epistemic community consisting of economic development specialists, agricultural economists, and administrators of food aid. According to the initial regime principles, food aid should be provided from donors' own surplus stocks, should supplement the usual commercial food imports in recipient countries, should be given under short-term commitments sensitive to the political and economic goals of donors, and should directly feed hungry people. As a result of following these principles, the epistemic community and other critics argued, food aid often had the adverse effects of reducing local production of food in recipient countries and exacerbating rather than alleviating hunger. The epistemic community (1) developed and proposed ideas for more efficiently supplying food aid and avoiding “disincentive” effects and (2) pushed for reforms to make food aid serve as the basis for the recipients' economic development and to target it at addressing long-term food security problems. The ideas of the international epistemic community have increasingly received support from international organizations and the governments of donor and recipient nations. Most recently, they have led to revisions of the U.S. food aid program passed by Congress in October 1990 and signed into law two months later. As the analysis of food aid reform demonstrates, changes in the international regime have been incremental, rather than radical. Moreover, the locus for the change has shifted from an American-centered one in the 1950s to a more international one in recent decades.

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Research Article
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International Organization , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , Winter 1992 , pp. 225 - 264
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1992

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References

This article draws on ideas published in my earlier article, “The Evolution of Food Aid,” Food Policy 9 (11 1984), pp. 345–62, and on papers presented at the meetings of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., September 1987, and the International Studies Association, London, April 1989. I am grateful to Stephen Krasner, Peter Cowhey, Peter Katzenstein, Peter Haas, and M. J. Peterson for their comments and suggestions. I am also deeply indebted to Owen Cylke, Jon O'Rourke, and their colleagues at the Agency for International Development, an organization that provided a grant to Swarthmore College for the purpose of organizing a series of conferences that were held in preparation for the 1990 farm bill and focused on changes in the PL480 legislation.

1. For examples of these shifts, see the testimony of Owen Cylke, the acting assistant administrator for food aid at the Agency for International Development (AID), in U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, Preparation of the 1990 Farm Bill, PL480: Hearings Before the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, 101st Congress, 1st sess., 1989Google Scholar; World Bank and World Food Programme (WFP), “Food Aid in Sub-Saharan Africa,” draft of a joint study, Washington, D.C., 09 1990Google Scholar; Berg, Alan, Malnourished People: A Policy New (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1981)Google Scholar; and Ruttan, Vernon W., Why Food Aid? Surplus Disposal, Development Assistance, and Basic Needs (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, forthcoming), chaps. 1 and 2Google Scholar. Cylke's testimony was built on a series of workshops and conferences held in 1988–89 and attended by scholars on food aid. The participants' interaction is an excellent example of the paths by which an epistemic community can nurture consensual knowledge. The epistemic community's advocacy statements for policy reform and greater policy coordination in the food aid donor community were reflected, for example, in the July 1990 farm bill reforms for PL480 as set forth by both the Senate and the House and in the final bill that was passed by Congress in October 1990 and signed into law in December 1990. The community's ideas are also most incorporated in the position taken by the Cairns Group in the ongoing Uruguay Round negotiations of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

2. For a discussion of the defining qualities of an epistemic community, see the following works by Haas, Peter M.: “Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination,” in this issue of IO;Google Scholar and “Do Regimes Matter? Epistemic Communities and Mediterranean Pollution Control,” International Organization 43 (Summer 1989), pp. 377–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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13. Cathie, John, The Political Economy of Food Aid (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982).Google Scholar

14. Cravero, Kathleen Ann, “Food and Politics: Domestic Sources of U.S. Food Aid Policies, 1949–1979,” Ph.D. diss., Fordham University, Bronx, N.Y., 1982.Google Scholar

15. Epstein, “Food for Peace.”

16. Humphrey, Hubert, testimony before the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, 16 07 1953, on considerations of S. 2249 authorizing the use of surplus commodities for foreign assistance;Google Scholar cited by Ruttan, in Why Food Aid? p. 1.Google Scholar

17. See International Wheat Council (IWC), Rules of Procedure: 1981 Protocol for the First Extension of the Food Aid Convention, 1980 (London: IWC, 1981)Google Scholar; Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Development Cooperation: 1985 Report (Paris: OECD, 12 1985), pp. 137–56;Google Scholar and OECD, Development Cooperation: 1989 Report (Paris: OECD, 12 1989).Google Scholar

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19. Hopkins, Raymond F., “The Evolution of Food Aid,” Food Policy 9 (11 1984), pp. 345–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20. For an analysis of the impact that memories of past mistakes have on decision making, see May, Ernest R., “Lessons” of the Past: The Use and Misuse of History in American Foreign Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973).Google Scholar

21. Regarding the key role played by Singer, see Clay, Edward and Shaw, John, eds., Poverty, Development, and Food: Essays in Honor of H.W. Singer (London: Macmillan, 1987).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22. See Singer, Hans, Men Without Work (London: P. S. King & Son, 1940)Google Scholar; Singer, Hans, “Distribution of Gains Between Investing and Borrowing Countries,” American Economic Review 40 (05 1950), pp. 473–85:Google Scholar and Singer, Hans, Wood, John, and Jennings, Tony, Food Aid: The Challenge and the Opportunity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987).Google Scholar

23. This list excludes a number of contributors to the food aid literature, both in government and in academia, who are debatably members of the epistemic community. For example, Wallerstein, Mitchel, now at the National Academy of Science, is the author of an influential volume, Food for War: Food for Peace.Google Scholar

24. For examples of important works written by the radical critics of food aid, see George, Susan, How the Other Half Dies: The Real Reason for World Hunger (New York: Penguin Books, 1976)Google Scholar; Jackson, Tony, Against the Grain: The Dilemma of Project Food Aid (Oxford: Oxfam, 1982)Google Scholar; Lappé, Frances Moore and Collins, Joseph, with Fowler, Cary, Food First: Beyond the Myth of Scarcity (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977)Google Scholar; and Rothschild, Emma, “Is It Time to End Food for Peace?” New York Times Magazine, 13 03 1977, pp. 15–48Google Scholar. In the magazine Food Monitor, which flourished for a decade following the 1974 world food conference, and in a variety of professional and institutional (usually church-related) journals, food aid was also broadly condemned as an insidious and misleading “gift” to the poor.

25. See Johnston, Bruce F. and Mellor, John W., “The World Food Equation: Interrelations Between Development, Employment and Food Consumption,” Journal of Economic Literature 22 (06 1984), pp. 521–74.Google Scholar

26. The World Bank's Development Report, 1992 (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, forthcoming)Google Scholar seeks to pull together much of the research on the nature of these linkages.

27. See Brown, Lester, “State of the World, 1988,” paper no. 65, World Watch, Washington, D.C., 1988.Google Scholar

28. For arguments supporting this link, see the contributions in Mellor, John W., ed., “Food Policy, Food Aid and Structural Adjustment Programmes: The Context of Agricultural Development,” special issue of Food Policy, vol. 13, 02 1988Google Scholar. Many experts have explored this link, as have the leaders of various organizations. For example, Johnson, Philip, executive director of the Cooperative for American Relief to Everywhere (CARE), discussed it in his speech in Minneapolis in 11 1988.Google Scholar

29. See Stevens, Christopher, Food Aid and the Developing World: Four Case Studies (London: Croom, Helm, 1979)Google Scholar; and Singer, , Wood, , and Jennings, , Food Aid.Google Scholar

30. See Schultz, Theodore W., “Value of U.S. Farm Surpluses to Underdeveloped Countries,” Journal of Farm Economics 42 (12 1960), pp. 1019–30;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Ezekiel, Mordecai, “Apparent Results in Using Surplus Food for Financing Economic Development,” Journal of Farm Economics 40 (11 1958), pp. 915–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31. See George, , How the Other Half Dies;Google Scholar and Lappé, and Collins, , Food First.Google Scholar

32. Ruttan, Vernon W., “Food Aid: Surplus Disposal, Strategic Assistance, Development Aid and Basic Needs,” mimeograph, University of Minnesota, 10 1989, p. 60.Google Scholar

33. See Bjorkman, James W., “Public Law 480 and the Policies of Self-Help and Short Tether: Indo-American Relations, 1965–68,” in Report of the Commission on the Organization of the Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1975), appendix 3;Google Scholar and Paarlberg, Robert L., Food Trade and Foreign Policy: India, the Soviet Union and the United States (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985).Google Scholar

34. Johnston and Mellor, “The World Food Equation.”

35. Williams, Maurice J., “The African Food Problem and the Role of International Agencies: Report by the Executive Director,” World Food Council, Rome, 8 03 1982.Google Scholar

36. See C. Peter Timmer and Matthew Guerreiro, “Food Aid and Development Policy,” paper presented at the Agricultural Development Council/Research and Training Network Conference, Colombo, Sri Lanka, August 1980; Joachim Von Braun and Hartwig de Haen, “Impact of Food Price and Subsidy Policies on the Agricultural Sector: Egypt,” mimeograph, Ministry of Agriculture of Egypt, USDA and AID, Washington, D.C., 07 1982Google Scholar; U.S. General Accounting Office, “Search for Options in the Troubled Food-for-Peace Program in Zaire,” mimeograph, Washington, D.C., 22 02 1979Google Scholar; and Murdoch, , The Poverty of Nations.Google Scholar

37. See Hay, Roger W., “Criteria for the Provision of Emergency Food Aid,” document CFA/21/10, addition 1, WFP, Rome, 03 1986Google Scholar; and Maxwell, Simon, “European Food Aid: Not Just for Emergencies,” in CAP Briefing (Brussels), nos. 1–3, 10 1987.Google Scholar

38. See National Research Council, Food Aid Projections for the Decade of the 1990s.Google Scholar While academic-congressional coalitions in the United States pushed for the recognition of the nutrition-based needs of recipients and had a strong impact on the allocation decisions made by policymakers, the Black Caucus and other special interest groups did relatively little lobbying and cannot be credited with bringing about reform in the process of allocating aid. Even during the 1984–85 food shortages in Africa, Americans of African origin played no special role in mobilizing support.

39. See Hopkins, Raymond F., “Increasing Food Aid: Prospects for the 1990s,” Food Policy 15 (08 1990), pp. 319–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

a Food-insecure countries encompassed here are designated in the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) terminology as “low-income, food-deficit countries.” Dash = none or negligible; na = data not available.

b The alternative FA volumes were calculated using figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), World Food Needs and Availabilities (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, Winter 1989), p. 4Google Scholar. The figures assume an identical amount of total aid (10,044) but reallocated according to the nutrition-based estimates done of “assessed additional cereal needs” by the USDA Economic Research Service.

Source. FAOGoogle Scholar, Commodities and Trade Division, Food Outlook (Rome: FAO, 02 1990), pp. 2 and 39–40.Google Scholar

40. Shapouri, Shahla and Missiaen, Margaret, “Food Aid: Motivation and Allocation Criteria,” Foreign Agricultural Economic Report no. 240, USDA Economic Research Service, Washington, D.C., 02 1990, pp. 18–22.Google Scholar

41. Even the U.S. representatives involved in the GATT negotiations have expressed their concern and argued that only “bona fide” food aid should be allowed under a GATT agreement.

42. See, for example, Clay, Edward, “Triangular Transactions,” mimeograph, WFP, Rome, 1987Google Scholar; and Shaw, D. John, “Triangular Transactions in Food Aid: Concept and Practice—The Example of the Zimbabwe Operations,” IDA Bulletin (bulletin of the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex), vol. 14, 04 1983, pp. 29–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43. World Bank and WFP, “Food Aid in Sub-Saharan Africa.”

44. See World Bank, Sub-Saharan Africa: From Crisis to Sustainable Growth (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1989).Google Scholar

45. See Ezekiel, “Apparent Results in Using Surplus Food for Financing Economic Development”; and Schultz, “Value of U.S. Farm Surpluses to Underdeveloped Countries.”

46. These empirical studies were reviewed by Isenman, Paul J. and Singer, Hans W. in “Food Aid: Disincentive Effects and Their Policy Implications,” Economic Development and Cultural Change 25, (01 1977), pp. 205–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47. Ruttan, , “Food Aid,” pp. 55–56.Google Scholar

48. See Hopkins, Raymond F., “Food Aid: Solution, Palliative, or Danger for Africa's Food Crisis?” in Commins, Stephen K., Lofchie, Michael F., and Payne, Rhys, eds., Africa's Agrarian Crisis: The Roots of Famine (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1986), p. 207.Google Scholar

49. During the 1950s and 1960s, tobacco, cotton, and similar agricultural products were regularly included under the category of “food” provided as food aid, at least in the U.S. program.

50. Jackson, , Against the Grain.Google Scholar

51. See Isenman, and Singer, , “Food Aid.”Google Scholar

52. On the subject of monetization, see National Academy of Science, National Research Council, Nutritional Aspects of Public Law 480, Title II Commodities (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1982)Google Scholar. For a discussion of the National Academy's report, see Reutlinger, Shlomo and Katona-Apte, Judit, “The Nutritional Impact of Food Aid,” Nutrition Today 19 (05–06 1984), pp. 1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53. This estimate is based on unpublished data from the WFP.

54. See Hopkins, , “Increasing Food Aid,” Table 3, p. 325Google Scholar. According to data from the WFP “INTERFAIS,” 88 percent of food aid was targeted toward “low-income, food-deficit” countries in 1990.

55. National Research Council, Food Aid Projections for the Decade of the 1990s.Google Scholar

56. Shapouri and Missiaen, “Food Aid.”

57. See Rothschild, , “Is It Time to End Food for Peace?”; Frances Moore Lappé, Joseph Collins, and David Kinley, Aid as Obstacle (San Francisco: Institute for Food and Development Policy, 1980)Google Scholar; and George, , How the Other Half Dies.Google Scholar

58. This claim is based on interviews held in 1984 with food aid officials in Brussels, Ottawa, Rome, and Tokyo.

59. Members of the U.S. Congress, the EC Parliament, and other legislative bodies have frequently referred to the writings of members of the epistemic community during their deliberations. This is evident, for example, in the records of various hearings before U.S. congressional committees in 1989 and 1990, prior to the passage of amendments to PL480.

60. See Paarlberg, , Food Trade and Foreign Policy, chap. 3.Google Scholar

61. Jolly, Richard, Adjustment with a Human Face (Rome: Society for International Development, 1985)Google Scholar. Jolly called for the modification in his Barbara Ward lecture, subsequently widely quoted and reprinted.

62. See Hopkins, Raymond F., “Food Aid and Policy-Based Lending to Africa: Dilemmas for States and Donors,” in Commins, Stephen K., ed., Africa's Development Challenges and the World Bank: Hard Questions, Costly Choices (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1988), pp. 133–55;Google ScholarHopkins, Raymond F., “The Evolution of Food Aid: Toward a Development-First Regime,” in Gittinger, J. Price et al. , eds., Food Policy: Integrating Supply, Distribution, and Consumption (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), pp. 246–59;Google Scholar and WFP, “Review of Food Aid Programmes and Practices,” document CFA/19/5, Rome, 1988.Google Scholar

63. World Bank and WFP, “Food Aid in Sub-Saharan Africa.”

64. For a discussion of the Pisani plan, see Tuinenberg, Kees, “Experience with Food Strategies in Four African Countries,” in Gittinger et al., Food Policy.Google Scholar

65. See Jackson, , Against the Grain;Google Scholar and Ruttan, “Food Aid.”

66. See WFP, “Guidelines and Criteria for Food Aid,” document CFA/7/5, Rome, adopted in 1979Google Scholar; World Bank, Poverty and Hunger;Google Scholar and World Bank, The Challenge of Hunger in Africa: A Call to Action (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1988).Google Scholar

67. Rothstein, Robert, “Consensual Knowledge and International Collaboration,” International Organization 38 (Autumn 1984), pp. 733–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

68. Shapouri and Missiaen, “Food Aid.”