Aid cuts leave food for millions mouldering in storage

FOOD rations that could supply 3.5million people for a month are mouldering in warehouses around the world because of US aid cuts and risk becoming unusable, according to five people familiar with the situation.

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The food stocks have been stuck inside four US government warehouses since the Trump administration’s decision in January to cut global aid programmes, according to three people who previously worked at the US Agency for International Development and two sources from other aid organisations.

Some stocks that are due to expire as early as July are likely to be destroyed, either by incineration, using them as animal feed or disposing of them in other ways, two of the sources said.

The warehouses, which are run by USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA), contain between 60000 to 66000 metric tons of food, sourced from American farmers and manufacturers, the five people said.

An undated inventory list for the warehouses — in Djibouti, South Africa, Dubai and Houston - stated that they contained more than 66000 tons of commodities, including high-energy biscuits, vegetable oil and fortified grains.

Those supplies are valued at over $98 million (R1.7 billion), according to the document reviewed by Reuters.

That food could feed over a million people for three months, or the entire population of Gaza for a month and a half, according to figures from the World Food Programme, the world’s largest humanitarian agency.