When refugees sell or barter food, it's not always an indication that they've been given too much food relief, as donors assume, but because they are desperate to obtain different food, such as salt, necessary for survival.

In fact, in a new Cornell study published in the Jan. 10, 1998, issue of The Lancet, researchers found that the poorest refugees who had the worst diets were twice as likely to sell or barter food as other families.

"Donors tend to interpret food sales by refugees as evidence that the refugees are getting too much, so donors then typically cut back on food relief," said Jean-Pierre Habicht, M.D., a world-renowned expert in international nutrition surveillance and co-director of the Program in International Nutrition at Cornell. Such was the case in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) in 1996, when the World Food Programme reduced food rations by 20 percent after donors observed that some food aid was being sold in local markets and exported.

"Our study, which is the first to document the different responses within a population according to levels of deprivation, shows that food sales by refugees is not evidence they are getting too much. Refugees are provoked to sell food because they need other important foods, are culturally averse to the food they've been given, unable to prepare it for lack of fuel, or they are desperate to obtain non-food supplies, such as soap."

The findings are important, Habicht says, because they delve into the less-than-obvious motives behind food aid sales and could impact how donors interpret refugee food sales and whether donors will continue to reduce rations when they observe the sale of food rations in refugee populations.

Barbara Reed, a Cornell doctoral candidate in nutritional sciences working with Habicht and the first author of the study, interviewed a wide range of refugees, camp workers and farmers in and around refugee camps near Uvira, eastern Congo (Zaire). Reed and Habicht then conducted a survey of 1,005 households, randomly selected across the camps, to quantify the nature and prevalence of buying, selling and eating patterns. The researchers also collected data in 15 representative sectors across camps to assess relative well-being.

The researchers found that, for example, about one-third of the Burundian and Rwandan refugee families that had been given maize had sold some of it. The most common reason was to buy salt, which had not been consistently distributed, and because dried maize was unfamiliar and not liked. The maize in this form also required a lot of fuel or much was lost in hand pounding, and many women complained that the maize caused diarrhea and that their children wouldn't eat it.

"Thus, parents sold maize to buy salt, soap, vegetables, fish or cassava flour -- a much more familiar and liked food -- for their children," said Habicht.

Similarly, more than half of the families surveyed made even trades of the vegetable oil received as food aid for more nutritious and flavorful red palm oil.

The refugees with the lowest income were nearly twice as likely to sell food because refugees who had other income could make essential purchases without having to sell their food rations, he said.

"Instead of reacting negatively to the refugee trade of food commodities, I think donors should recognize it as a legitimate coping strategy and support markets in refugee camps," Habicht said. "Permitting the use of food as a medium of exchange would increase the value of the food sold and decrease the cost of basic purchases because such exchanges would no longer be on the black market. By forbidding such markets, the poorest families are deprived of making better use of the few resources they have."

Habicht also calls for closer monitoring when food relief supplies are distributed. "Salt was supposed to have been distributed to the refugees in Zaire, but it was not. As a result, the most destitute had to barter away a fourth of their starvation diet for one day's supply of salt. To make matters worse, donors misinterpreted the trading and reduced food rations for refugees by 20 percent."

Reed, who was a geologist for 13 years, received her master's degree in human nutrition from Cornell in 1993. She then took a leave of absence to survey the effects of land mines in Afghanistan and Cambodia. She is now back at Cornell working on her doctoral degree; her dissertation will address the coping mechanisms of refugees in Africa.

The study was supported by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.