Approximately 2 billion has been allocated by the US government for food aid to developing countries, most of this is spent on shipping their own food products to the needy countries, (something that compromises the local market and much of that cost covers freight. The majority of the countries who send aid prohibit monetization, that is they try to ensure that farmers buy local so that countries do not become bound to the world market, “Suspicions remain that the US uses monetized food aid programs to avoid limits on its universally contested farm subsidies.” Thus it buys the crops from its own farmers that it would otherwise have to subsidize.