The Disposal of European Community Food Surpluses: Market Development Through Food Aid and Export Refunds

Since, at its inception, the European Community (EC) was highly dependent on food imports, EC institutions were not designed to facilitate overseas market development for food exports. As time passed, the EC has become much more self‐sufficient in food, generating large surpluses in cereals and dairy products. Market development has never been an official EC policy goal, but there is evidence that the EC has used food aid to encourage Third World countries to increase food imports from Europe. Evidence also exists that the Community has used export subsidies as a means of competing for an increased share of promising international markets, though this effort has not been unambiguously successful.