Is food part of the solution?

[elSicomoro]

We know that a Congressman will seize any opportunity to pat themselves on the back.

I like the concept as a whole--give hungry people food, they may be happier and less likely to hate us. Of course, there's no guarantee of that, and I concede that it's only a temporary fix. My understanding of places like Ethiopia and Sudan are that they are rather arid places, unable to grow much food. So, how would we necessarily be destroying their markets?

I'm not sure if the 3rd world can truly develop without some sort of "interference" from the first world. As I see it, the former colonial powers pulled out of these nations without helping the people develop long-term governmental and economic structures. Someone will always want their hand in the cookie jar, methinks.

Quite frankly Hubris, you're no better than Congress. If we gave every family in Sudan an iBook, that would be as much as $3-5 billion.

I am admittedly ignorant of agricultural issues, therefore, Griff, I am confused by parts of your post. The parts I am confused on are italicized.

The American press generally sells it as a win win situation which is good for american agriculture and good for the third world, when in fact it is the opposite, destroying the flexibility and openess of the American market and maintaining a dependent overseas population. Instead of putting our overproduction of grain into meat we move production higher. We feed cattle with our regular production and then our overproduction is shipped overseas to disrupt their market places. This means that when we have a down production year, instead of fewer cattle being fattened in the US, we have fewer human beings being fed in the third world