Gawain Kripke
Gawain Kripke of Oxfam America said at a Tuesday news conference that commodity provisions in the House and Senate farm bills “are not good for our concerns,” and that even though efforts to make major changes to international food assistance programs failed, the Senate version of the bill contains “modest changes” to food aid.

Oxfam hopes more changes can be made in conference, he said.

Oxfam and other advocates of changes in food assistance, he said, believe that the close 203-220 vote on a food aid amendment in the House showed that they had made major progress in convincing legislators that the program should change, but “we lost on the jobs argument.”

Noting that maritime interests and labor unions had opposed them, Kripke said, “We need to take that up as an issue.”

Under the current food aid program, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Agriculture Department buy U.S. commodities and ship them overseas. The Obama administration and development advocates have proposed allowing USAID to buy food near the countries experiencing the food shortage and to provide more agricultural development aid.

Those provisions were in the House amendment that failed narrowly.