Political instability breeds famine. The Sudan has the capacity to feed much of the Middle East. Mozambique was once a breadbasket capable of feeding much of Sub-Saharan Africa. Even at the height of the civil war in Mozambique, a tiny, politically stabilized area around Alto Moloque was able to grow enough grain to provide much of the relief goods that the development agency World Vision required. Food donation programs just create vast welfare states.
Food builds infrastructure.
During the 1988 floods in Bangladesh, I visited two small towns with Save the Children. One of those towns had a food for work program whereby women in the town would be given food and for that food they created industry. They had local looms. They created pottery. When the great flood came, it isolated the villages, polluted the water supply and created an epidemic of diarrhea.