How eating local provides a big boost in emergency situations
Local procurement, using local or regional goods for the provision of food aid during an emergency, is faster, more affordable, and overwhelmingly preferred by recipients. But local procurement can also improve local standards for聽food quality, providing an聽important impact on long-term development for countries experiencing hunger.
Christopher Barrett, an economist at Cornell, led a study that found several benefits of local procurement鈥� some expected and others less so. Barrett and his collaborators looked at various pilot projects in Niger, Zambia, Bangladesh, and Guatemala to test the feasibility of buying food aid locally. Their inclusion of countries where food aid arrived by foreign and local procurement provided for a side-by-side comparison. They found that when food aid was locally procured, it arrived聽more quickly and affordably, as expected. What they did not expect, Barrett explained in an interview with National Public Radio (), was that聽"By almost any criterion, households much prefer the locally sourced food.鈥�
In 2014, President Obama signed into law reforms that would allow for an increase in local procurement in countries receiving assistance from the U.S. and 鈥渁 pilot program created in the 2008 farm bill to study the effectiveness of purchasing food aid locally and regionally [would] be continued as a full program with modestly increased funding to US$80 million聽per year.鈥� According to Oxfam America, 鈥渢his provision could help reach more than 1.8 million additional people with life-saving aid at no additional cost to taxpayers.鈥澛�
Furthermore, Oxfam explained that聽food aid reform doesn鈥檛 just make economic sense, it also adds to market demand in the countries receiving assistance as well. Over the past five years, the聽聽Purchase for Progress (P4P) initiative, which supports smallholder farmers 鈥渢o market their crops collectively through farmers鈥� organizations to access formal markets and earn better prices,鈥� has found that local procurement can be carried out with minimal market distortion and an overall improved quality of goods. Local procurement isn鈥檛 a short-term fix- it also leaves a lasting impression on the community that has the potential to raise local standards.
This article first appeared at .
