Food Aid Reform
Update July 31, 2007: Although Rep. Earl Blumenauer sponsored an amendment on food aid last week, it was ultimately not included in the House of Representative's version of the Farm Bill. There is still a chance to insert a provision to reform food aid in the Senate version. Senator Tom Harkin is promoting a provision that would establish a pilot program that could be a step toward larger reform. (See today's New York Times article on the subject for more information.)
With one common sense reform to the U.S. food aid program, we can save many more lives without spending one cent more. Take Action Now or read on for more information.
The United States provides food aid to millions of hungry people in places where war, famine, or severe poverty have disrupted food production or distribution. But U.S. law requires that nearly all food aid be grown in the U.S. and shipped at great expense across vast oceans.
Much of the aid winds up subsidizing U.S. agricultural and shipping companies and often undercutting poor farmers in the affected country, making it less likely they will be able to feed themselves in the future.
We can save more lives by changing the rules to allow some aid to be provided in cash either to purchase food locally or to allow poor people to buy food for themselves.
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The Bush adminstration has already been convinced to support with this reform. We just need to convince Congress. (Take action here.)
If this reform goes through, at least three-quarters of food aid will continue to function the same way it does today. But it is an important change.
Under the current program, needy people may die because food from the United States cannot arrive in time. Farmers in poor countries may see the price of their product fall due to an influx of cheap or free food from the United States. The cost involved in shipping food means less food can be delivered.
A recent report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that, over the last five years, as a result of rising business and shipping costs, delivered food has fallen by half even as the number of hungry people worldwide has stayed the same.1
The Bush administration, supported by development groups like Oxfam, has taken a good position on this issue. They would like the change the law to allow up to a quarter of U.S. food aid to be used to purchase food directly in developing countries.2
A key obstacle to change is intense lobbying from corporate agricultural and shipping interests. We can form a larger group of citizen lobbyists with an interest in a common sense reform that will ultimately save more lives.
Although the administration has been pushing this reform for the past two years, until recently, news media have given limited attention to this issue and the majority of the U.S. public has not heard of it. We can transform the debate on food aid and help save hundreds of thousands of lives.
Take Action!
References
1. "Oversight Report Says U.S. Food Aid Practices are Wasteful," Celia W. Dugger, New York Times, April 14, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/14/world/14food.html
For more detailed information, see: Government Accountability Office, "Foreign Assistance: Various Challenges Impede the Efficiency and Effectiveness of
U.S. Food Aid," GAO-07-560, April 13, 2007
http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/abstract.php?rptno=GAO-07-560
2. "Even as Africa Hungers, Policy Slows Delivery of U.S. Food Aid," Celia W. Dugger, New York Times, April 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/07/world/africa/07zambia.html
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