The European Community's food aid programme : An integration of ideology, strategy, technology and surpluses

The European Community's food aid programme has come to be an unanticipated spillover from its Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Policy-making within the institutions of the EEC consistently takes place in an environment of ideological differences, characterized by the ‘Europeans’ and the ‘nationalists’; the CAP is a front-line example. Its price-support features have enabled the Community's agriculture to be gradually and safely modernized. In turn, food surpluses, especially of dairy products, have become evident and costly. This mixture of ideology (including a strong dose of humanitarianism), strategy, technology and surpluses have played a major role in the development and construction of an EEC food aid policy, which has grown incrementally into a programme of significant proportions.