Fighting world hunger: U.S. food aid policy and the food for peace program

AgExporter, Oct, 2004 by Ryan Swanson

Numerous times throughout the 1980s and 1990s, presidents have released grain from the Trust in response to difficult circumstances. In 1984, President Ronald Reagan authorized the release of 300,000 tons of grain to help fight widespread famine in Africa. Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton designated the release of grain to aid the Middle East and the Caucasus regions. In 2002, officials released 275,000 tons of grain to again aid starving people in Southern Africa. The drought in that region created a situation of unexpected severity, the type of unpredictable calamity that the Emerson Trust was intended to hedge against. The fund currently has a balance of over 2 million tons.

In the 1980s, another significant new food aid program emerged, this one with a more concerted diplomatic focus. The Food for Progress initiative, first authorized in 1985, made very explicit the connection between the donation of food and the recipient country's philosophy of government. Commodities came from CCC stocks or purchases from the market and may be furnished in the form of either financing or donations.

But most significantly, Food for Progress did just what its title suggested--it linked food and progress. Only countries that were emerging democracies or that made a significant commitment to free enterprise in their agricultural economies could receive aid under this provision.

Food for Progress donations have been made to countries all over the world. In 1999, for example, after Hurricane Mitch nearly crippled Honduras and Nicaragua, FAS, through the Food for Progress program, made direct food donations valued in excess of $13.5 million. The donations eased the hunger caused bv the hurricane and helped with the rebuilding of the agricultural infrastructure in those countries.

Like the Food for Progress initiative, the most recent addition to the United States' array of food aid programs seeks to improve the societal conditions of the receiving country. In July 2000, President Bill Clinton committed the United States to providing resources worth $300 million to help establish school nutrition programs in needy countries. Strongly backing this move were two long-time proponents of food aid and increased school nutrition programs, Senators George McGovern and Robert Dole. In 2001, the pilot Global Food for Education Initiative began distributing commodities via the WFP as well as through many private voluntary organizations.

In the course of a two-year trial, the program provided nutritional meals for nearly 7 million children in 38 countries. The goal was not only to abate hunger, but also to increase the number of children who attend school, it is estimated that 12(1 million school-age children currently do not attend school because of lack of food and proper nutrition. Many are forced to work in the fields to maintain even a subsistence lifestyle.

This new initiative gained permanent status under the 2002 Farm Security and Rural Investment Act. As a result of the legislation, the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program was launched in 2003 to provide school meals, teacher training and technological support to foreign countries. The program will take different forms in different countries. In Eritrea, for example, plans call for a joint program to be conducted through Africare and Mercy Corps International to provide 65,000 students with high-protein biscuits and hulk throughout the school year. In Guatemala, Catholic Relief Services and World Share will take profits made from selling U.S. goods and use them to purchase locally grown food in order to supplement students' diets. In addition to the program flexibility that allows different organizations to distribute aid, the McGovern-Dole program also pays transport and shipping costs.