(While this is a news about USA, AFA shares the hopes of its partner NGO , IATP, regarding the positive impact that the new US food aid policy can bring to the farmers in developing countries in Asia.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Obama administration’s fiscal year 2014 budget, released today, includes long-overdue changes to the way the U.S. distributes its food aid around the world. These changes will make aid more efficient—up to doubling the bang for each dollar spent—and they will help build local capacity in developing countries, creating markets for local farmers who in turn will help their countries cope with an increasingly volatile international food supply.
For nearly 60 years, U.S. food aid has relied on buying food from American farmers through U.S. corporations to send abroad on U.S.-owned ships. President Obama proposes shifting food aid to programs that also support local and regional procurement of food aid.
“For too long, we’ve been sold the idea that U.S. farmers must feed the world. Instead, to build real food security, we need farmers everywhere, whether in Kansas or Kenya, to be able to feed their own communities and nations. Strengthening that capacity through our food security and trade policies should be the priority,” says Karen Hansen-Kuhn of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP). “Food aid is the last safety net when all else fails, so it is imperative that funding levels don’t fall, but making it faster, more flexible, more efficient and building a tool to build local markets is a common-sense solution.”
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