Nutrition, Development, and Foreign Aid: A Case Study of US-Directed Health Care in a Colombian Plantation Zone

Abstract

Based on a case study of some aspects of Rockefeller and USAID intervention in the Cauca Valley, Colombia, this article is aimed at drawing attention to the political characteristics and inadequacies of U.S.-sponsored health care planning and research in the Third World, particularly as regards nutrition in rural regions of intensive economic development. By contrasting an historical analysis of the politicoeconomic development of agriculture and nutrition in the southern Cauca Valley with the assumptions guiding U.S. intervention in the health field there, a more complete picture of the causes of malnutrition is obtained, among which should be counted the interventions of the U.S. itself. Inter alia, other approaches to the malnutrition problem are suggested.