The practice of grain dumping continues. For example, imports of heavily subsidized cereals from the USA and EU have been increasing in the Sahel by around 10 percent a year for more than a decade. The effect has been to drive down prices, to undermine investment in agriculture, to deprive rural people of their livelihoods and to create conditions for food dependency.
Millions of people in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso depend on extensive livestock production for their livelihoods. Traditionally they sold their animals to the wealthier coastal countries like Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo and Benin. Since the mid 1980s, large quantities of subsidized European beef have been arriving in the region. This beef is up to two thirds cheaper than locally produced beef and thus destroy the market for African farmers. Regional trade in cattle is estimated to have dropped by at least 30 percent during the 1980s. The aid policies of the EU and its member states are also undermined, since each year they spend considerable sums on aid to West African livestock production.
Hundreds of cases of poisonings prompted Russia, in 1994, to issue an attack on Western countries dumping sub-standard and dangerous food.