This paper outlines a coherent strategy for the use of food aid in addressing food insecurity. It surveys recent literature on poverty traps, the rights-based approach to food security and discusses where food aid fits into an integrated analysis of poverty and food security. The paper distinguishes between transitory and chronic poverty and between ‘safety nets’, designed to prevent people from falling below a certain poverty threshold, and cargo nets, aimed at lifting people out of chronic poverty. The appropriateness of food aid is discussed in the context of three situations: emergency humanitarian assistance, asset protection, and asset building and productivity enhancement. The paper argues that food aid, like all forms of foreign assistance, should first seek to do no harm.