Food Aid

Food aid is a form of support or relief in cash or kind for food-deprived communities ravaged by or recovering from human-induced or natural/environmental disasters to alleviate hunger and to achieve food security and development of such communities.

Food aid is often rendered in chronically food-insecure situations—including starvation, hunger, and inadequate nutrition—arising from unforeseen and unpredictable complex emergencies. Food aid is sometimes monetized by selling food commodities in recipient countries and using the proceeds to finance development budgets, programs, and projects. Food aid is internationally sourced and driven; in the short term, it is tied to food provision to minimize hunger and starvation in emergency circumstances, and in the long term, it is tied to development and capacity building.

Food aid is governed by activities of international ...