If there's one thing you don't hear of very often in the aid sector, it is relief groups turning down donations. So it's no surprise that Care International's decision to turn down $46 million of U.S. food aid has raised sparks.

Care says it will phase out by 2009 "monetised" food aid from the U.S. government. This is effectively surplus grain given by the U.S. to aid groups to ship and sell in the developing world to fund relief programmes.

Supporters say it is a legitimate and effective way of raising and transferring money. Critics say it simply distorts local markets, undercuts local farmers and -- put simply -- hurts those it is intended to help.

"The truth is that the subsidised importation from America reduces the growth in the local market," says Care worker George Odo on the group's website. "It destroys the very thing it is trying to promote."

According to Time magazine, only 22 percent of all food aid was sold rather than distributed in 2005. European countries all but phased out monetised aid in the 1990s.

The world's largest food distribution agency, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), says it stopped monetisation years ago and has no intentions to restart it.

Aid workers increasingly say the most effective way of delivering food aid is to buy as locally as possible to reduce delivery costs and support local farmers. They say the American-style system of delivering surplus food from U.S. farmers -- even when it is delivered directly to beneficiaries -- is simply less effective.

A roundup of blogs in the Chronicle of Philanthropy finds most of them generally supportive of Care, but some correspondents say simply phasing out monetised aid is too slow while others accuse the aid group of being too confrontational.

"How can an organisation such as Care rejects such a donation?" said one writer. "Care should take a second look and accept the gift in the spirit of the giver...Many people work long and hard to find a charitable donation of this magnitude and it shouldn't have been rejected."

For the editorial writer at Investor's Business Daily, there are even bigger issues.

"Like welfare, (aid) supports a beggar's mindset -- when it's not being stolen by corrupt governments or warring factions -- and it does nothing to move recipients towards independence. Aid keeps them where they are, chained to the wretched present with no hope for the future."

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