Does food aid make people lazy?

CBC News Viewpoint, May 16, 2006
by Mike Quinn

Southern Africa is in a food emergency. So says the World Food Program, the world's principal hunger watchdog. This past year, an estimated 12 million people were classified as chronically hungry and at risk of starvation in the region. Nearly two million were in Zambia alone, and of those the most vulnerable live in the Southern Province.

Mabuku speaking to a group of farmers in Sinendende village.

These statistics are designed to tug at the heartstrings of ordinary Canadians to get us to care. If only we could mobilize resources like we did after the Asian tsunami, surely we could feed all these hungry people. But is food aid really an appropriate solution? And if not, is there an alternative?

I posed these questions to a group of village headmen after a meeting in Sikaunzwe, a cluster of buildings in a rural area along Zambia's southern highway. Village headmen form the country's traditional political system at the grassroots level. Reporting directly to the nearest chief, they tackle various development issues and make decisions on behalf of their village constituents. At this particular meeting the headmen were debating whether to repair a damaged building that is used to store the monthly delivery of food relief, which can almost be classified as Sikaunzwe's staple food.

"You know whenever we headmen meet we always bash heads!" chuckled Albeus Mabuku, a lively fellow with frosty white hair and a hearty laugh who is always smiling. Mabuku is the headman from Sinendende village, and is fiercely against relief.

"Some want us to rebuild the building, but as long as we're discussing handouts I won't support anything they say," he said. "Handouts make us lazy."

And I have to say, this is not an uncommon reaction from many of the rural leaders and field development workers (especially those carrying out relief projects) whom I've met in the past year while I've lived in Zambia. Time and time again, I've heard the expression "food aid makes people lazy" or "food aid creates dependency" - directly from the mouths of people who provide aid and from those who receive it.

Of course there is a flipside to this argument. The poor are not homogeneous, and some argue that the poorest of the poor need food aid to stay alive. An old grandmother taking care of a group of AIDS orphans can't be expected to produce enough food to feed them all. The problem, however, is accurately targeting who those people are, and doing it in a way that doesn't create a disincentive for others who can otherwise produce enough food.

Josephine Chikuni with a handful of sorghum.

The cause of the food emergency is also more complex than first meets the eye. Drought is the primary culprit, with last season's being the worst in a decade. However, drought is only part of the story. A cultural preference for maize (corn) as the staple food throughout Southern Africa is a big contributor. Maize was introduced by the British Colonialists many centuries ago, and was adopted as the country's staple crop by the Zambian government after independence. The problem is that maize requires just the right amount of rainfall to thrive. If there is too little or too much, it stunts and dies. It also requires fertile soil, which is no longer characteristic in the region. The vast majority of subsistence farmers do not use fertilizers because they cannot afford them.

So what is the alternative? This year, Mabuku planted nearly one hectare of sorghum in addition to one hectare of maize as part of a project to promote crop diversification. Sorghum is both drought and flood tolerant and requires only one-third the rainfall of maize. It was traditionally grown in the region before maize took over for good in the 1960s. Sikaunzwe received near record rainfall this year, flooding Mabuku's maize field. However, his sorghum is doing very well, and he expects a surplus that he can sell to earn his annual income.

But it wasn't only Mabuku who took the initiative to improve his situation. Just down the road in Kazuni village, Josephine Chikuni also chose to plant sorghum in place of maize this year. Chikuni is an old widow with several dependants, and is a model recipient for food aid because she is below the subsistence level. Her small field is adjacent to her mud and stick house, which is damaged from this season's heavy rains. She is only able to farm one-third of a hectare because she doesn't have the strength or the labour to farm more. In comparison to Mabuku, Chikuni would be classified in poverty terms as much more vulnerable.

Chikuni's face beamed with pride as she showed me her flourishing sorghum field. A quick sample indicated that she will harvest nearly one tonne, which is phenomenal given the lack of fertilizers and irrigation. This should last through the eight-month dry season, although she may choose to sell a little. Conversely, the maize field just next door yielded almost nothing, and her neighbour will depend on relief yet again to get by.

Even though Mabuku and Chikuni are in very different situations, they are united by a common thread. They both took it upon themselves to improve their livelihoods by breaking from traditional behaviour and diversifying their crop production. Initiative is a precious attribute that is too often underestimated in development projects and must be carefully nourished. It is also an attribute that food aid, by its very nature, is at odds with. Fortunately for Zambia, farmers like Mabuku and Chikuni are demonstrating that solutions to hunger can come from within.

- Mike Quinn is a Mechanical Engineering graduate from The University of British Columbia who is currently based in Livingstone, Zambia on his second volunteer placement with Engineers Without Borders. He is assisting CARE International to commercialize a drought resistant cereal crop called sorghum in a region where hunger is one of the biggest constraints to human development. In his spare time, he is an avid freelance writer and is best known for a story that inspired Sarah McLachlan's Grammy-nominated "World on Fire" music video.