ABSTRACT
The title of this chapter is not meant to be an exercise in fence-sitting; it is a positive statement that food aid is good in parts. Food aid is not a major solution to the problems of development; in many cases it is inferior to cash aid, and it is certainly not an adequate substitute for agricultural development in the ldcs. At the same time, there is no evidence from the four case studies that it is an inherently unsatisfactory form of development assistance. One recent and widely acclaimed book on world food problems asserts: ‘the fact is that dumping large quantities of low-priced American grain on underdeveloped countries makes it economically impossible for the small domestic producer to compete…’1 The evidence of this book suggests that as a general statement this is simply untrue.2 The proposition that food aid is good in parts tells us little by itself. What is important is to discover how it is good and why it is bad and to develop some ground rules for assessing whether the particular circumstances of a given donor or recipient are likely to result in food aid having a positive or a negative impact.
