Grain and other relief foods provided by intergovernmental organizations, or individual nations, are being distributed in recipient nations on a reward or punishment basis. The victims are frequently indigenous peoples, for whom food is the final weapon employed in a long line of coercive programmes to destroy their culture and solidarity. Surplus grain, fish, meat or butter are not viewed as the answer to hunger, or even simply as a commodity, by the numerous producer nations who now instead look to the political advantages of distribution.
North American grain and European dairy products are among political food commodities, and water resources are also a political weapon.