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Food Aid

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Synonyms

Emergency food; Food assistance; Food donations; Food dumping; Food poverty; Food security

Introduction

Food aid refers to the international forms of donating food from one country (or institution) to another without conventional economic transactions and market mechanisms. In the recipient country, the food may, however, be further sold. A distinct form of food aid where food charity organizations or similar actors distribute food (through for instance food banks) specifically for citizens or households living in poverty, see the entries on “Food Assistance and Ethics of Food Charity.”

Food shortages have been tragedies characteristic of the history of humanity, but today’s situation is different and morally relevant because there is enough food to feed everyone. Still, in 2017, around 800 million people suffer from chronic malnutrition and 20 million are on the verge of starvation. The high prevalence of long-term malnutrition is especially a problem of developing countries...

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References

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Correspondence to Teea Kortetmäki .

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Kortetmäki, T. (2019). Food Aid. In: Kaplan, D.M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1179-9_612

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