Food aid proposal could complicate farm bill
April 10, 2013 | 12:54 PM
In a move that could complicate enactment of a new farm bill, President Barack Obama today proposed eliminating funding for the P.L. 480 Title II Food for Peace international food aid program and replacing it with a new system of using cash to buy American and foreign commodities.
The proposal, involving a reduction in food aid spending from $1.7 billion to $1.5 billion and moving the $1.5 billion among accounts, is “a significant shift and improvement” that represents “a continuation of deep commitment to advance global food security globally and to reaching people in the gravest need,” an administration official said Monday in a briefing for the North American Agricultural Journalists.
Eliminating monetization would allow U.S. development food aid to reach an estimated 800,000 more undernourished women, men, and children per year and all together the changes would allow “life-saving assistance” to reach an additional 2 to 4 million people per year, the administration official said.
But even before it was announced, the proposal garnered opposition on Capitol Hill and from American farm, humanitarian and shipping interests. (See stories on details of the proposal and reaction from food aid and maritime groups below.)
The food aid proposal does not affect Food for Progress or the McGovern-Dole international school feeding programs, which are managed by the Agriculture Department.
To put the Obama administration’s proposal into effect, Congress would have to change the law. Farm bills contain a food aid provision, and the farm bill under development on Capitol Hill would be the most logical legislative vehicle for change.
The farm bills passed by the Senate and by the House Agriculture Committee in 2012 contained some changes, but none as dramatic as what the administration has proposed.
A key factor for congressional consideration is that the change from commodity to cash assistance would also result in the jurisdiction shifting from the House and Senate agriculture appropriations subcommittees to the subcommittees on foreign operations. Defenders of the current programs say that the foreign operations subcommittees might shift the money to other uses.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has generally left the development of the farm bill to lawmakers. On Monday, Vilsack told agricultural journalists that the current system is a good one, but that the proposed changes reflect the budgetary need to provide food aid more efficiently
It is unclear how strongly the administration views the food aid proposal, since it originated at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah is scheduled to give a speech on the proposal this afternoon at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He will be introduced by former Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., a former Senate Agriculture Committee and Foreign Relations Committee leader who has long championed food aid.
Under current law, in place since 1954, the U.S. government buys American commodities and ships them overseas in American ships to address emergency food needs, and also for use by American nongovernmental organizations to help advance agriculture in developing countries.
Critics say that the current system, particularly the use of American ships and the monetization or sale of some of the food for development purposes, is inefficient and that purchases under the new proposal would encourage the development of agriculture in poor countries.
But American farm, humanitarian and shipping interests say the current system has a political constituency that guarantees a supply of safe food aid.
The proposal, involving a reduction in food aid spending from $1.7 billion to $1.5 billion and moving the $1.5 billion among accounts, is “a significant shift and improvement” that represents “a continuation of deep commitment to advance global food security globally and to reaching people in the gravest need,” an administration official said Monday in a briefing for the North American Agricultural Journalists.
Eliminating monetization would allow U.S. development food aid to reach an estimated 800,000 more undernourished women, men, and children per year and all together the changes would allow “life-saving assistance” to reach an additional 2 to 4 million people per year, the administration official said.
But even before it was announced, the proposal garnered opposition on Capitol Hill and from American farm, humanitarian and shipping interests. (See stories on details of the proposal and reaction from food aid and maritime groups below.)
The food aid proposal does not affect Food for Progress or the McGovern-Dole international school feeding programs, which are managed by the Agriculture Department.
To put the Obama administration’s proposal into effect, Congress would have to change the law. Farm bills contain a food aid provision, and the farm bill under development on Capitol Hill would be the most logical legislative vehicle for change.
The farm bills passed by the Senate and by the House Agriculture Committee in 2012 contained some changes, but none as dramatic as what the administration has proposed.
A key factor for congressional consideration is that the change from commodity to cash assistance would also result in the jurisdiction shifting from the House and Senate agriculture appropriations subcommittees to the subcommittees on foreign operations. Defenders of the current programs say that the foreign operations subcommittees might shift the money to other uses.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has generally left the development of the farm bill to lawmakers. On Monday, Vilsack told agricultural journalists that the current system is a good one, but that the proposed changes reflect the budgetary need to provide food aid more efficiently
It is unclear how strongly the administration views the food aid proposal, since it originated at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah is scheduled to give a speech on the proposal this afternoon at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He will be introduced by former Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., a former Senate Agriculture Committee and Foreign Relations Committee leader who has long championed food aid.
Under current law, in place since 1954, the U.S. government buys American commodities and ships them overseas in American ships to address emergency food needs, and also for use by American nongovernmental organizations to help advance agriculture in developing countries.
Critics say that the current system, particularly the use of American ships and the monetization or sale of some of the food for development purposes, is inefficient and that purchases under the new proposal would encourage the development of agriculture in poor countries.
But American farm, humanitarian and shipping interests say the current system has a political constituency that guarantees a supply of safe food aid.
