The Iraqis Will Need Trade, Not Aid

In humanitarian aid as in medicine, the first principle should be: Do no harm. As we prepare to send humanitarian relief to Iraq, the record of past food-aid operations in Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia and other countries suggests that certain bitter lessons may not have been learned well enough.

In the short term, Iraqis in some areas of the country will need supplemental food and water. Sixty percent of the population has been entirely dependent on rations distributed by the government of Saddam Hussein, a system that has been disrupted by the war. But in the long term, it is imperative that we do everything possible to restore the agricultural self-sufficiency of Iraqis.

Some experts are already predicting starvation and famine in Iraq, but this is misleading. The farmlands irrigated by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are among the most fertile in the world. Farming is still the most common occupation in Iraq. Although oil accounted for a larger share of the economic output of the country, more Iraqis work as farmers than in the oil industry. Grain production in Iraq has begun rebounding in recent years. Even now, Iraq is a net exporter of dates and other produce. In preparation for the war, the Iraqi government stockpiled foodstuffs, and many Iraqi families filled their household pantries with reserves.

It is true that short-term food and water supplements may be necessary in some areas. But the question must be asked: Would huge grain exports from Western countries be in the best interests of Iraqis? According to a recent Reuters report, U.S. agriculture groups have lobbied the Bush administration to ship American-grown grain to Iraq.

Twelve years of economic sanctions have effectively isolated Iraq from the outside world. Iraqi farmers need the reestablishment of trade links, restoration of international commerce and an end to economic isolation. They need trade, not aid.

According to Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen, an expert on famine, food crises occur primarily for political and economic reasons. Even in war, a sheer lack of food is rarely the problem. If the international community responds to short-term food deficits in Iraq as a famine -- as we did in Afghanistan and numerous other countries -- the result will be the same: depression of prices for locally grown produce; disincentives to farmers to return to their land and grow food; incentives to turn to more profitable cash crops, such as opium poppy; dietary imbalances from eating aid rations; and dependency on foreign food imports.

Sending American- and European-grown cereals to Iraq does less for the subsistence farmer in that country than it does for government-subsidized American and European agribusiness. Such “wheat dumping,” as it has been called, is a convenient way of dispensing with the developed nations’ grain surpluses while also scoring humanitarian points with a public that is justifiably uncertain about the wisdom of fighting this war at this time.

Let’s not overstate the problem. “Famine” is a highly charged word and it is often used to elicit charity. In the field of public health, “famine” is a technical term used only to indicate a situation in which specific mortality rates and levels of malnutrition in children under age 5 are observed. These conditions are not present in Iraq.

The more intelligent approach to the impending crisis -- and the one that will do the most to restore civil society in Iraq -- is to bring in high-yield seeds, fertilizers, tools and technical expertise.

It may well have been necessary to drop bombs on Iraqis, but we don’t have to dump our surplus wheat on them as well.

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Gerald Martone is director of emergency relief of the International Rescue Committee. James M. Stubenrauch is a senior editor of the American Journal of Nursing.