What is "Food Dumping?"
The term "food dumping" refers to donating food to countries that do not necessarily need it. While some developing countries do have many people living in poverty, sometimes donations are unwanted because they only end up hurting the economy of the developing country (Watkins & von Braun, 2003). How could providing people in poverty with food possibly damage their economy? Well, local farmers in those developing countries cannot afford to continue their businesses when members of the community are getting food aid. This presents a problem, seeing as the country then cannot become self-sufficient and eventually comes to rely on the food aid. The United States, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand have all been accused of "food dumping" with the intentions of eliminating excess agricultural products (Pedersen, 2012).
The Dilemma
As the chart to the left shows, many people around the world live in extreme poverty. It is in our nature to want to help these people, but we also do not want them to become victims of food dumping. Instead, we want to improve their living conditions. After looking through the arguments from both sides of the food aid debate, click on the "Solutions" tab on this website for some insight into how we can address this dilemma.