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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | U.S. food aid to Liberia 1980-1988 |
Author: | Kirsch-Jung, K.P. |
Year: | 1989 |
Periodical: | Liberia-Forum |
Volume: | 5 |
Issue: | 9 |
Pages: | 5-28 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Liberia United States |
Subjects: | development cooperation food aid rice |
Abstract: | This article examines the scope and impact of American food aid on the rice situation in Liberia. The US government stabilized the PRC (People's Redemption Council) and Doe administration in Liberia in the eighties, amongst others by providing rice at concessional terms under the US Food Assistance PL 480 programme. Almost half of the rice imported between 1980-1988 came as American food aid deliveries. PL 480 rice guaranteed the availability of a stable supply of rice to consumers and helped the government of Liberia to save foreign exchange which would otherwise have been spent on rice imports. It is probably only with this assistance that the Liberian government was able to keep the politically motivated consumer control price for rice at the 1980 level and partly fill the gap between local production and consumption needs. A second objective, required by the food aid legislation, is to condition rice sales and use proceeds in such a way that agricultural development is stimulated and local production increased. However, all US efforts to influence the Liberian goverment's agricultural policy towards a farmer-oriented approach, through conditionalities and allocation of funds in the various PL 480 agreements, failed. Bibliogr., notes, ref. |