ABSTRACT
Malnutrition is the result of having an insufficient and/or deficient diet. According to Amartya Sen, modern food crises are less about the absence of food and more about the inability to buy it. Examining the 1943 Bengal famine, Sen found there was plenty of food around. Sen notes that similar variables can explain the 1974 Bangladesh famine. In April 2008, Haitian protestors, objecting to rising food prices, attempted to storm the presidential palace gates in Port-au-Prince. After dictator Jean Claude Baby Doc Duvalier was overthrown in 1986 the International Monetary Fund (IMF) provided Haiti with a US$24.6 million loan. The agricultural sector was heavily protected through tariffs and import prohibitions. Trade liberalization policies have had a largely negative effect on the macroeconomic stability of the country. The USA is, and has long been, the largest food aid donating country. In 1954, the US government created Public Law 480 with the passing of the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act.
