A presentation by students evaluating the role of food aid, free trade and fair trade in addressing the imbalances of food provision caused by Ethiopia's Silent Famine of 2009-10

1. Addressing Imbalances:
Ethiopian Silent Famine (2009)
SHELLY KIM, SEO-YEON CHOI,
JOEY LIMMENA

2. Ethiopia
 Population: 67 million
 84% live in rural areas
 Half live on less than $1 a day
 80% rely on agriculture for their livelihood

3. Famine in Ethiopia
 The Ethiopian government- 250,000 people need
food aid
 An aid organization and agricultural officials- # of
people who need emergency food aid in Ethiopia is
around 700,000.
 many Ethiopians are chronically
hungry.
 due to political, economic and environmental
reasons.

4. Long-term
 many of the poor had depleted their assets to deal
with the famine
 Became even more vulnerable to future crises.

5.  Decrease in economy
 Malnutrition -> sickness
 not being able to work
 Most Ethiopians
employed in agriculture
 Lead to more famine due to shortage of food + farmers
 Ethiopia’s farming techniques are already poor

6. WHY FOOD AID?
 To relieve short-term effects of famine
 It’s an immediate solution
 If food was always provided
 for them they’d become too
 dependent on it.
 Bad for local economy
 Price of food products would decrease
 Local economy will be benefited
short-term but would long term suffer

7. WHY FAIR TRADE?
 Will initiate a stable income for the country
 It’s a medium-term solution, where it last longer
than FOOD AID.
 All the economy to be helped but leaves the
economy to shape up on their own.

8. WHY FREE TRADE?
 Enable country to fully expand into the international market.
 Long-term but difficult solution (best solution)
 Not a dependent source of income.
 Almost impossible for this to help them rise to the levels of USA
or Japan
 Unlikely solution, in a way that the results are hard to achieve.

9. Evaluation

10. Short-Term Impacts
UN’s World Food Program – food aid
- "Eighty-five percent of our food aid is emergency
food aid, and only 15% is going to address chronic
hunger among malnourished children.”
Terri Raney (Author of the FAO’s State) – food aid
• "We think that it ought to be separated from the
tie-in requirements many donor nations put on
their food aid.“
• Requirements Include:
 the food had to be purchased and processed
in the donor nation
 then shipped on vessels registered in the
donor nation.
• "These kinds of things not only reduce the
Picture of WFO from efficiency of the food aid, but they are very
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costly“

11. Mid & Long-term Impacts
Terri Raney (Author of the FAO’s State) – food aid
 "It is very clear that food aid saves lives…Our
concern, though, is that in some cases, physical
distribution of food aid can undermine longer
term security.”
 "Some of the ways food aid is managed reduce
the efficiency of the timing and targeting.”
Increased Cost of Sustainable Production – fair trade
 Recent increase in transportation and food costs
have dramatically effected all small farmers
Environmental damage – free trade
 The increase of corporate farms in developing
Picture of FAO from fao.org
countries increase pesticide and energy use, and
host countries ignore costly environmental
standards.

12. Conclusion
IF WE CAN FIX THESE
CONS, THEN THE PLAN
COULD BE EFFECTIVE.
HOWEVER, WITH THE
GIVEN SITUATIONS, THE
PLAN WOULD NOT LET THE
COUNTRY IMPROVE.