The famine unfolding today in Niger has too many familiar characteristics. One of the poorest countries in the world is in a deadly crisis — one foreseen and ignored until the cost of intervention had jumped from $1 per child to $80, according to the United Nations.

Many people have died and more will die in the coming weeks and months because rich countries failed to respond in time.

It does not have to be this way. Swift and smart reforms to outdated American food-aid programs can move us toward preventing such crises rather than cleaning up after them.

In a study I did this year with Kathleen McAfee, a geographer at the University of California, Berkeley, we concluded that the U.S. food-aid system has two main problems — ones that other major donor countries have already taken steps to solve.

First, almost all aid is in the form of food produced in the U.S. The government buys food from American commodity traders. This approach usually results in costs above market rate for food, handling and transport.

The emphasis on using American commodities and firms is inefficient and means that food is slow to arrive where it is needed.

Most other major donors, particularly those in the European Union, give money instead of food. This frees agencies like the United Nations World Food Program to buy food from farmers near the affected country — farmers who are often very poor — and to send the food quickly where it is most needed.

The second major problem is that the United States is the only country other than South Korea to sell food aid (albeit for less than commercial prices) or give it to intermediaries that then sell it.

Private American aid organizations receive American food aid and sometimes sell the food at local markets to raise money for their other aid programs in the country.

Governments of recipient countries also sell food aid at local markets to raise money. The result is a subsidized sale that creates unfair competition for local farmers and commercial traders.

If we want our contributions to tackle the root causes of hunger, then the U.S. government needs to make immediate changes to the food-aid system.

It should transition to cash-based aid and phase out sales of food aid. The United States also needs to work with other donors and local governments to establish regional reserves in the most vulnerable parts of the world.

The government should make multiyear guaranteed donations to the World Food Program so that the agency has the financial reserves to allow it to plan its responses to emerging crises.

We should work not only to prevent every death we can in Niger today, but also to ensure that the children and grandchildren of those affected by this crisis can look back on it as an exception rather than a norm.

Sophia Murphy is the director of the Trade Program at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis.