ADDIS ABABA, 7 Feb 2006 (IRIN) - There is a joke told in Ethiopia that encapsulates the country's struggle with food aid dependency. In it, two subsistence farmers are talking about the year's poor rains and the impact on their harvests.The older, his face and hands worn from a lifetime of hard work, turns to his younger friend and offers some advice: "It is not the rains in Ethiopia you need to worry about, but whether it rains in America or Canada."
For the last three decades, millions of Ethiopians have depended on food aid from the donors. Each year, regardless of harvests or rains, at least five million Ethiopians need food aid for six months to survive...
ETHIOPIA: Struggling to end food aid dependency (IRIN) Feb 7, 2006
