ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the nature, origins, and objectives of project food aid and use data from the anthropological study to assess the extent to which these objectives are met. It describes the relevance of the findings to food-aid programming in Kenya. United States government provision of food aid had its origins with the Marshall Plan after World War II, and became a permanent feature of US foreign assistance with the enactment of the Agriculture, Trade and Assistance Act, commonly known as PL 480, in 1954. The chapter utilizes ethnographic data from the Taita maternal and child health program to describe the household-level impact of the food provided, in an effort to see to what extent nutritional, economic, development, foreign policy, and other objectives—from USAID, CRS, and beneficiary perspectives—actually are being met. Traditional Taita agriculture was based on the exploitation by individual households of multiple fields in different soil, rainfall, and temperature zones.
