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On September 21st, student activists from 20
universities across the U.S.
took their campaign for “A Just Farm Bill” to Congress. They met with 45 Senators
during the 2007 National Student Day of Action for an Equitable Farm Bill. One
of the issues that came up was the tied U.S. Food Aid to developing countries
and to Africa in particular. The Farm Bill passed
by the House earlier this summer did not include the much-needed reform of food
aid that organizations such as AFJN and Oxfam had been advocating. The provision that was excluded in the House
Bill was a requirement for the U.S.
to purchase 25 percent of non-emergency food aid under
Title II in cash through Local and Regional Procurement (LRP) rather than
purchased in the United
States from commercial farms.
Here are a few reasons why such a
provision is of critical importance:
- An estimated 854 million people are affected by chronic
hunger in poor countries worldwide, half of them in Africa.
- Each year, chronic hunger kills as many as 30 to 50
million people. Victims include the approximately 6.5 million children who
die from hunger each year.
- Despite the growing demand for food aid, rising
transportation and business costs have contributed to a 52 percent decline
in average tonnage delivered over the last 5 years, according to a recent
study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office .
- Only one-third of the
money granted for food aid actually goes toward food - the rest is spent
on transport and administration.
- Most
importantly, deliveries of in-kind food aid undercut local farmers’
crop sales, especially in Africa. The
negative global impact on local food sovereignty is considerable, including
situations where subsidized US food imports have displaced
local markets in African countries making
it economically impossible for the small domestic producers to compete.
Reinstating
the provision to allow 25 percent of non-emergency food aid to be provided in
cash for local and regional purchases would alleviate poverty and hunger in developing nations and would empower
small and medium-sized farmers who were previously forced out of business by
sales of below market value food aid from the U.S.
The main priority of food aid should be to alleviate hunger rather than create market for U.S.
agribusiness. CARE has recently
recognized how U.S.
food aid can work against the poor, and consequently walked away from $45
million worth of federal funding. The European
Union (EU) devotes 96 percent of its food aid to buying locally, and Canada
does the same with 50% of its food aid.
Changing the way the U.S.
food aid is purchased could make a huge difference for food aid recipients in many
countries and regions around the world .The National Student Day of
Action for an Equitable Farm Bill gave students the opportunity to
contribute to the advocacy process for a fair farm bill with their Senators. In recent years, the U.S. provided between 55 and 65
percent of global food aid, 98 percent in the form of actual food. The price is
enormous - up to $2 billion per annum. That policy has meant an ever-increasing
excess of American corn, which most years costs the U.S. taxpayer some $5-$10 billion
in subsidies. As noted by many, the money, which in 2005 kept the price of corn
at around half what it costs to produce, is a subsidy for the big American
companies that buy and process the corn - and these companies are the ones that
dictate American farm policy. The Senate Agriculture Committee chairman, Tom
Harkin (D) of Iowa,
where growers and landowners got $1.58 billion in corn subsidies in 2005, is
advocating a $25 million pilot program to test buying food in poor countries
for both emergency and long-term aid. Even that modest proposal is meeting
stiff resistance from farm state legislators.
When
will the much talked about 'Local and Regional Procurement' (LRP) be
implemented as the preferred option of WFP? From across the world, there are
stories of how, once a dependency on food aid has been established, local production
is destroyed when the aid stops and commercial supply begins. This has happened
with American Soya beans in the Philippines
and Japanese rice in Jamaica.
Subsidized dairy produce from Europe has, according to Oxfam, put milk farmers
out of business in a number of Caribbean
countries. Food aid can permanently damage the economies of nations it has meant
to help. Vast tons of rice donated by the USA
and Japan to Indonesia
after the country's economic collapse in 1997 caused severe damage to farmers
and distributors that has never been repaired. Indonesia, once one of the world's
largest producers of rice, is now a net importer of rice.
AFJN, in its
commitment to the reduction of poverty in Africa, adds its voice to this call
for reduction of the US
untied food aid to Africa in order to
stimulate local production, stabilize the economy, and reduce poverty rather
encouraging dependency. Please send a letter from our website to encourage your
Senators to promote a fair Farm Bill.
-Joseph Effiong
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