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The Soon Coming Judgment Of God Upon America and How To Escape It 132
of India is that it permit the United States to buy some of these strategic materials....” As a result
of these proceedings India got her grain, the US got monazite sands and soon after in 1954 P.L.
480 was born.
P.L. 480 would become known as “Food for Peace” but its purpose had little to do with
either aid or peace. Its actual purpose was to dispose of US grain surpluses while protecting the
market prices of those grains. The US had built up huge grain surpluses during the 1940s as a
result of an almost 50 percent increase in production and only a 30 percent increase in
consumption. The US government was storing these surpluses at a cost of $1 million per day.
The farm lobby argued that if these surpluses were dumped on the world market, there
would be a disastrous corresponding drop in grain prices of $1 per bushel. The proposed solution
was the “creation of a secondary foreign market by allowing food-deficient countries to pay for
American food imports in their own currencies instead of in dollars.” This became the premise of
Title I of P.L. 480. Thus, under Title I, food aid is actually the sale of US grain to poor and
hungry third world nations and the propping up of world grain prices. The purpose of selling the
grain in foreign currency was not to aid these nations but to artificially inflate the price of the
grain by keeping it off the world market which would have caused a steep fall in it price.
432
By 1981 two-thirds of all food aid had taken place under Title I of P.L. 480. Incredibly,
under this program, foreign governments are allowed to “take out long-term loans from the US
government to purchase surplus agricultural commodities.” Once foreign governments have the
food they can do with it what ever they want. In a nation with a food shortage, food can be a very
valuable commodity. Most often, the poor and hungry see little to none of the food; it is sold
within the nation's local markets to only those who can afford it.
433
Food aid in some of the most hungry nations often helps bolster and finance repressive
regimes. In Bangladesh, approximately one-fifth of the countries operating budget was at one
time provided by the sale of cereals provided by food aid. At the same time food aid failed to
feed the hungry in Bangladesh. Rather than relieving hunger, the program helped perpetuate
hunger. According to estimates by AID economist Joseph Stepaneck: “approximately 80 percent
of the rationed-supplied food serves those with cash in towns and cities.”
434
At the time, 1980, Bangladesh was the fourth largest recipient of US food aid. Thirty
percent of Bangladesh's food aid was coming from the US between 1974 and 1980. Of the US
food aid supplied to Bangladesh, about 90 percent of of it fell under Title I and II. Under Title II
the recipient country is provided dollar credits to buy US produced food commodities. Under this
system, the government of Bangladesh and the governments of any other food aid recipient
nation has total control over the food. Bangladesh acted no different than most nations under the
program, it sold the food to raise money for budgetary purposes.
Bangladesh sells the food under a ration system. Those who are able to obtain the ration
cards can buy the food at a substantial subsidy. The authors of Aid As An Obstacle, were able to
obtain food distribution observations from their colleagues in Bangladesh. Their observations
were confirmed by World Bank statistics: “27 percent of the food aid goes to police, military,
and civil services and to employees of large enterprises; 30 percent goes to predominantly
middle class cardholders in six major cities; and nine percent goes to supply mills for grinding
flour for urban bakeries. The few ration cards held by the marginally employed living in Dacca's
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