Putting food on the table

Change is hard, especially when you are making a fair amount of money now and may not be making as much if things change. So, some large food and shipping companies, such as Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland, are concerned about a Bush administration proposal to change our Food Aid programs.

Our Food Aid programs, which are the largest in the world, started under Eisenhower when we had huge government stockpiles of food and sending it overseas was a good way to help poor countries as well as the farmers. To make sure we would help the farmers the law said only American-grown food could be shipped under this program.

Well, the world has changed a lot in fifty years. Most of the farmers who grew all that food in the '50s have been replaced by agribusiness. And, our stockpiles are nowhere near as huge as they once were. Yet, we're operating the same way despite the fact that the $2 billion of food shipped under this program is very small change in the overall income of the farm industry. So, it would seem that changing the program to better fit today's needs would have very little effect on our farming industry; in fact, change may enable more food to be put on poor people's plates and to be put there quicker.

One proposed area of change is the use of food grown closer to where there are food shortages, i.e., in Africa. Requiring the use of American-grown food results in the Food Program budget spending about as much on shipping the food as on the food itself. Thus, even if it cost as much to grow crops in Africa as in the US, the result of this aspect of the proposal would be more food on the plate. Further, having food near to or already in the general area of need likely would result in food being available for starving people much sooner than if the food has to be shipped across the Atlantic.

If one is looking for budget savings, the effects of the current law provides another area for such savings. Now, NGOs sell much of the food they receive to raise money to address the causes of the lack of food. As noted above, the cost of the food NGOs receive includes the 50% shipping portion. The NGO and the US taxpayer would be better off if we just gave them an outright grant representing the value of the food alone.

You probably didn't expect me to say this but the Bush adminstration deserves credit for trying to get more food on the table.