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Food aid on wane, import on rise

Reaz Ahmad
Food aid and import swung opposite ways in the just ended fiscal 2002-03, with the aid plummeting to a two-decade low and import surging to a post-1998 peak.
Quoting government statistics, food officials said the aid totalled 2.6 lakh tonnes in the last fiscal year, the lowest since 1981-82.
Food import surpassed 30 lakh tonnes in the last fiscal year, the
second highest in the last two decades. Only in fiscal 1998-99, 42 lakh tonnes were imported.
In fiscal 2001-02, food aid from bilateral and multilateral donors stood at five lakh tonnes and food import at 12 lakh tonnes.
Officials said the decline in food aid in the last fiscal year was mainly due to a drastic fall in food assistance from the US because of its 'other commitments'. Only 54,970 tonnes of US food were received last year, down from 1.7 lakh
tonnes in2001-02.
The USAID on April 10 said droughts in southern and eastern Africa continued to attract widespread donor attention and considerable food aid.
In the last fiscal year, Bangladesh received relatively less food aid also from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) — 1.18 lakh tonnes com-pared to 1.72 lakh tonnes in 2001-02.
According to official data, US food aid to Bangladesh is waning since 1998, the year of deluge. The aid volume was 4.83 lakh tonnes in 1998-99, 4.17 lakh in 1999-2000, 2.33 lakh in 2000-01, 1.78 lakh in 2001-02 and 54,970 tonnes in 2002-03.
The WFP food assistance also declined — 4.08 lakh tonnes in 1998-99, 2.63 lakh in 1999-2000 and 1.29 lakh tonnes in 2000-2001. Though the aid volume rose to 1.72 lakh tonnes in 2001-02, it again fell to 1.18 lakh tonnes in 2002-03.
Food aid from other donors including Canada, Australia and the EU in last year either declined or stopped.
The volumes of food aid in tonnes in the last two decades are: 11.41 lakh in 1981-82, 9.76 lakh in 1982-83, 14.41 lakh in 1983-84,13.06 lakh in 1984-85, 10.87 lakh in 1985-86, 14.25 lakh in 1986-87, 17.87 lakh in 1987-88, 13.56 lakh in 1988-89, 9.49 lakh 1989-90, 15.40 lakh in 1990-91, 14.14 lakh in 1991-92,7.35 lakh in 1992-93,6.54 lakh in 1993-94, 9.35 lakh in 1994-95, 7.38 lakh in 1995-96, 6.18 lakh in 1996-97, 5.49 lakh in 1997-98, 12.35 lakh in 1998-99, 8.70 lakh in 1999-2000, 4.91 lakh in 2000-01, 5.09 lakh in 2001-02 and 2.6 lakh in 2002-03.
Meanwhile, the world food aid situation also witnessed some new phenomenon last year as some of the developing countries refused to take aid in terms of genetically modified (GM) food from the US fearing longterm adverse impact.