Feed the World: How the U.S. Became the World’s Biggest Food Aid Donor—And Why That Might Not be Such a Great Thing

Gastropod

Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley

Science, Food, History, Arts

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 22 May 2018

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The United States is, by far, the world’s largest international food aid donor. Almost every year since the 1950s, it has been responsible for more than 50 percent of the billions of tons of food shipped from the parts of the world with a surplus to the parts of the world that are hungry. This episode, we ask: how did this situation come about, given that America spent its first 150 years of nationhood arguing against feeding people overseas? And, more importantly, is shipping sacks of corn from American ports really the best way to help people in need around the world? Listen in as we explore the curious story of how the U.S. started giving food—and why it’s so hard to stop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for the show comes from Into the Mix, a Ben and Jerry's podcast about joy and justice produced with Fox Creative.
0:07.0	Thousands of Afghans were forced to flee their homes and fear for their lives,
0:11.0	and the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021.
0:14.0	The UK government pledged to take in 20,000 of them as refugees,
0:18.0	but in the first year, only 22 Afghans have been approved for asylum in the UK.
0:23.0	So what happened?
0:25.0	And what does this mean for the tens of thousands of people left behind?
0:28.0	Hear that story on the latest episode of Into the Mix.
0:32.0	Subscribe now.
0:58.0	I really smooth and squishy, a powerfully perfect combo, sweet tarts dare to combine.
1:05.0	Dawn, and as the sun breaks through the piercing chill of night on the plane outside Koran,
1:11.0	it lights up a biblical famine now in the 20th century.
1:16.0	This place, say workers here, is the closest thing to hell on earth.
1:21.0	I remember this.
1:23.0	I was really young at the time.
1:25.0	This was 1984, but I remember watching Michael Burke on the BBC and non-really understanding why I couldn't give these kids.
1:35.0	Kids, my age that were starving, the food they needed so badly.
1:40.0	I remember the images of starving children from Ethiopia more than any particular newscaster, really any newscast.
1:46.0	But the American government certainly had a response, and it was, give Ethiopians food the food that they needed so badly.
1:53.0	I'm Nicola Twilly, and I was a kid in England during the Ethiopian famine of 1984.
1:58.0	And I'm Cynthia Graber, and I was in junior high in suburban Maryland.
2:02.0	And you're listening to Gastropod, the podcast that looks at food through the lens of science and history.
	...

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