News

September 8, 2011

Kent R. Hill, Sr. Vice President of International Programs, World Vision U.S., testifies before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights, regarding the Drought and Famine in the Horn of Africa.  Click here to read full testimony.

World Food Situation
Release date: 08/09/2011

The FAO Food Price Index (FFPI) averaged 231 points in August 2011, nearly unchanged from July and 26 percent higher than in August 2010. The FFPI hit its all time high of 238 points in February.  Firmer cereal prices in August were largely offset by declines in international prices of most other commodities included in the Index, the oils and dairy in particular.  Click here to read more.

U.S. Department of State Office of the Spokesperson
September 8, 2011

More than 12.7 million people—primarily in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia—are in need of emergency assistance in the Horn of Africa. The United States is deeply concerned by the humanitarian emergency in the Horn of Africa, the famine that is occurring in parts of Somalia, the ongoing conflict within Somalia, and the escalating refugee crisis across the region. A large-scale international response is underway to prevent the further decline of an already dire situation, but there will be no quick fix. The U.S. is the largest donor of humanitarian assistance to the region, now providing over $600 million in life-saving humanitarian assistance to those in need. This funding supports humanitarian assistance to refugees, internally displaced persons (IDPs), and other drought affected populations. Because emergency assistance will not solve the underlying problems in the region, the U.S. Government is also working on long-term responses, such as through the President’s Feed the Future initiative.

Humanitarian Assistance to Refugees, Internally Displaced Persons, and other Drought Affected Populations: Reports from inside Somalia indicate the situation is growing increasingly desperate. The over $600 million the U.S. Government is providing includes protection and assistance for refugees in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Djibouti as well as funding for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) recent Emergency Appeal for Somali refugees as well as other humanitarian partners working inside and outside Somalia. Our diplomacy and our dollars leverage support from other donors for international protection and assistance efforts. These efforts are critical to saving lives and maintaining access to safe asylum in Somalia’s neighboring countries, even as they themselves struggle with a drought that has been described as the worst in 60 years.

U.S. assistance also supports health, nutrition, agriculture and food security, economic recovery and market systems, humanitarian coordination and information management, and water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya. The U.S. Government funds nutrition programs that treat malnutrition and support community-based education. The U.S. is working to address the immediate lifesaving needs of affected populations while also building communities’ resiliency to future shocks.

Food Security: Part of our funding will benefit those in need of food assistance in Ethiopia and Kenya. Our assistance will allow World Food Program (WFP) to expand geographic coverage and scale up feeding programs in drought-affected areas in Ethiopia and Kenya. In total, the United States is providing over $400 million in humanitarian food aid to Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia this fiscal year.

The U.S.-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) and Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU), which the United States supports, have maintained a strong presence in the region for decades, enabling the humanitarian community to identify conditions based on an extensive analysis of historical and current rainfall, cropping patterns, livestock health, market prices and malnutrition rates. FEWS NET’s early warning of the crisis in the Horn of Africa has allowed the United States to alert other donors and to make sizeable, early food aid contributions and scale up emergency programs to meet the increasing needs in the region.

Feed the Future: President Obama’s Feed the Future initiative—which helps address the root causes of hunger and undernutrition—is critical at this time. Increasing the resiliency and further developing the capacity of pastoralists to engage in a commercially viable livestock trade is crucial to breaking the disaster cycle across the Horn. By working with other donors and governments in the region, Feed the Future will increase overall agricultural production as well as increase the resiliency of pastoralists who suffer most acutely from the effects of the drought.

For example, Ethiopia’s Feed the Future program emphasizes improving early warning systems, disaster risk management, and livelihoods in pastoralist and agriculture areas. Feed the Future will invest in Ethiopia’s Pastoralist Livelihoods Initiative. This program has increased the value and sales of livestock by improving livestock health services, institutionalizing early warning and response, and improving land and water management. At the regional level, East Africa’s Livestock Trade program focuses on the trade of live animals, increasing the quality and availability of trade information, improving animal health, and building capacity for private sector trade groups.

Total Current U.S. Government Funding for Humanitarian Assistance to Horn of Africa

By Hannah Gregory / MissionNewswire

 Aug. 19, 2011

An already difficult situation has become a desperate one in the Horn of Africa where aid agencies like Salesian Missions were already hard at work helping the poor—long before the latest drought and famine that have brought the world’s attention to the region once again.

“Entire communities have nothing to eat and people, many of them children, are dying,” explained Salesian missionaries serving in the Kakuma refugee camp in northern Kenya. More than 20,000 Somali refugees sought refuge at the camp after fleeing the political instability, hunger and overcrowding of other camps. This brings the total refugees at Kakuma to more than 50,000 with an estimated 1,000 additional Somali refugees arriving daily.

In refugee camps served by Salesians in the area, more than 80,000 people are in need of assistance, according to Brother Cesare Bullo, executive director of the Salesian Planning and Development Office in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Authorities fear that this crisis could become worse than the famine of 1984-85 when more than one million people died. In response, the Salesians have organized an international fundraising initiative aimed to raise at least $850,000 to provide necessary aid for 6 months.

Projects to address the urgent needs of the drought and famine victims include the repair and maintenance of existing wells, drilling of new wells, water distribution and emergency food aid.

The repair and maintenance of four wells will provide a long-term water supply for 8,000 people. In additional, four new wells will be constructed. In total, it is estimated that at least 14,000 people will benefit from these new water sources.

“We have located four water points that need to be rehabilitated and strengthened through the purchase of new pumps and additional excavations to find more water,” says Br. Bullo. “The new wells will be built in four areas for local communities very much in need of water at the moment. The wells need to be capable of providing a sufficient quantity of water during the droughts.”

The Salesians also have a plan in the works to provide a water tracking service for water distribution in the area around Jijiga, to aid the pastoralist communities. The goal is to distribute 10-12,000 liters of water twice daily.

With 1,000 new refugees arriving daily in Ethiopia from Somalia, Br. Bullo says it takes three to four days for them to register with UNHCR and enter the camp to receive aid.

“They arrive after having walked more than 600 kilometers,” says Br. Bullo, emphasizing the urgent nature of the refugees’ needs.

“We are working to distribute food outside the refugee camps while they are waiting to be registered,” he says, referring to the area of Dolo Ado in the Southern part of Somalia. “We estimate we can provide 2,000 daily rations which means 1,000 people will benefit from the daily distribution for at least three or four days before entering the camps.”

Br. Bullo estimates they will help at least 10,000 people outside the camps in the first month.

 “So far, we have raised about a third of the needed funds and are hopeful that the remaining amount will follow as caring friends and donors learn of the crisis,” says Father Mark Hyde, director of Salesian Missions in New Rochelle, NY.

The Salesians specialize in assessing specific needs and identifying best possible emergency interventions to aid as many people as possible. Since they are already established in the communities working to help those in need, they are in a unique position to assess situations and respond.

For example, in Ethiopia the Salesians operate in 14 towns, providing schools, feeding programs, housing for orphans, and HIV/AIDS intervention programs. In Kenya, the Salesians bring classrooms to refugee camps, protect youth from disease, teach agriculture skills, feed hungry children and families, and much more.

China Daily

August 20, 2011

BEIJING – China will start shipments of food aid to northeast African countries by the end of this month to ease famine caused by severe drought in the region, an official from the Ministry of Commerce said on Friday.

The shipments from Tianjin port will be scheduled on a weekly basis and last for a month, said Yu Yingfu, deputy director general of the Department of Aid to Foreign Countries at the ministry.

“Measures have been taken to ensure that the food aid could be transferred to Africa at the earliest possible time and we will continue following the situation in the drought-stricken areas and be ready for further aid,” Yu said.

The worst drought in 60 years has struck northeast Africa in recent months. Rain in some countries was less than 5 percent of normal precipitation. Food production has seriously dropped, causing widespread famine.

More than 12.4 million people in countries such as Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti are affected, according to the United Nations, and tens of thousands of people have already died.

On July 27, the Chinese government announced emergency food aid of 90 million yuan ($14 million).

On Monday, Premier Wen Jiabao declared additional aid of 353 million yuan to northeast African countries while meeting with visiting Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

The World Food Program, the food aid branch of the UN, will use $16 million in cash from China’s aid to buy and distribute food in Somalia, where food transportation from China is very difficult because of the country’s geological features, he said.

The remaining amount includes 150 million yuan to Ethiopia, 130 million yuan to Kenya and 60 million yuan to Djibouti. The money will be mainly used to buy food such as rice, wheat, flour and oil in China’s market. Such foods are in urgent need in the famine-hit area, Yu said.

In recent years the Chinese government has stepped up efforts to cooperate with African countries in developing agricultural technologies.

From 2007 to 2009, China sent 104 senior agricultural experts to 33 countries across the continent to help them make agricultural development plans while providing consulting and training.

So far, China has built more than 40 agricultural cooperative projects in more than 30 African countries, trying to help them increase food production.

“This is the world’s largest-scale agricultural cooperation between one government and the African countries,” said Yang Lihua, director of the Center of Southern African Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

“China has made an important contribution in developing African countries’ agricultural industry,” she added.

However, China’s increasingly close ties with the continent have been criticized by some countries as “new colonization”. Some even blamed China’s “large-scale land purchases” as leading to drought and famine.

“It is absurd for some countries to try and blame China for the famine in the Horn of Africa,” Lu Shaye, director-general of the Department of African Affairs at Chinese Foreign Ministry, wrote in a comment in China Daily.

“China focuses on improving African countries’ food production capacity in its cooperation with Africa. China has not taken one single grain from Africa,” he said in the comment.

China will continue cooperating with Africa, Lu added.

July 25, 2011

With 12 million lives in danger due to the hunger crisis in the Horn of Africa, G20 Ministers met on July 25, 2011, and declared: “This crisis must be immediately contained and reversed by bringing emergency food assistance and support to the productive sector, as we work to rebuild livelihoods and improve resilience and agricultural production.” Read full statement here.

The East African
July 11, 2011

In 1984, a Kenyan photographer and cameraman named Mohamed Amin shocked the world into action with his images of famine victims in Ethiopia.

Today, 15 years after he was tragically killed in the crash of a hijacked Ethiopian Airlines flight off the Comoros Islands, famine once again stalks the Horn of Africa, threatening the lives of 10 million people in what the USAid-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fews Net) describes as one of the world’s most severe food security emergencies.

Perhaps no country in the region is as badly affected as Somalia. The Somalia Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU) estimates that 2.85 million people — a third of the population — are now in humanitarian crisis and in need of urgent assistance, an increase of 42.5 per cent over the figure in December 2010. “We are no longer on the verge of a humanitarian disaster; we are in the middle of it now,” Isaq Ahmed, the chairman of the Mubarak Relief and Development Organisation, a local NGO working in the south of the country, told IRIN on June 28. “It is happening and no one is helping.”

Indeed, the numbers coming out of Somalia paint a terrible picture of a population caught in a perfect storm of calamities: A two-decade long brutal conflict that has seen the country play host to one of the largest displaced populations in the world; the worst drought in a generation has precipitated a sharp decline in food production; rising food prices mean that even the little available is out of reach of the impoverished population; and funding shortfalls for relief agencies resulting from a faltering global economy.

The prevalence of acute malnutrition among children under five years is an objective crisis indicator, reflecting the wider situation of emergency affected populations, including their food security, livelihoods, public health and social environment, say Helen Young and Susanne Jaspars in their paper The Meaning and Measurement of Acute Malnutrition in Emergencies: A Primer For Decision-makers.

According to the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, at least 75 per cent of the estimated 241,000 malnourished children in Somalia reside in the volatile southern regions where the country’s internationally recognised Transitional Federal Government is battling a brutal insurgency in the latest iteration of the country’s 20-year civil war. In some of these areas, 1 in 3 children is malnourished, more than double the emergency threshold of 15 per cent.

In August 2010, the national level of acute malnutrition was 15.2 per cent with 16.6 per cent in the south. Five months later the situation had deteriorated in most parts of the country and a national rate of 16 per cent was reported, with 25 per cent in the south. Assessments conducted in April 2011 confirmed a sustained crisis. Complicating the situation in the south even further, Al Qaeda-linked extremist insurgents continue to bar international humanitarian agencies from access to the needy populations, accusing them of promulgating Christianity and Western ideology.

The conflict has also created huge numbers of internally displaced persons. Since January, the UN estimates the drought has added a further 55,000. These are most often the poorest of the poor and it is no coincidence, therefore, that they are suffering disproportionately. While a third of the general population is in crisis, the ratio among IDPs is twice that. In February, 910,000, or 62 per cent of the country’s 146,000 IDPs, were identified by FSNAU as being in crisis. The situation is now driving more people to flee the country altogether, many of them having to walk for up to a month to reach refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia.

At the Daadab refugee camp in Kenya, the largest in the world, about 1,300 Somalis are arriving every day, nearly two-thirds of them children. “Nearly every child or parent we have spoken to says they are not just fleeing fighting in Somalia — the drought and food crisis are equally perilous to them now,” Catherine Fitzgibbon, Save the Children’s Kenya programme director, told the BBC. “Children are arriving in Dadaab barefoot, after walking six weeks. They’re covered in sores and wounds, they’re acutely malnourished, they’re completely dehydrated and that is preferable to the conditions they are living in in south-central Somalia… A mother arrived at one of our feeding centres saying she’d actually left her children behind in the village because she couldn’t watch them die. She had walked away and left her six children in a house. Two of them ended up dying and we managed to reach four others,” added Sonia Zambakides, the organisation’s emergency manager for Somalia

For those left behind, relief, when it has come, has often been a case of too little too late. Two consecutive seasons of poor rain have resulted in one of the driest years since 1950/51 and there is no likelihood of improvement until 2012, says UN-OCHA. Last year, the October to December deyr short rains were below normal due to the La Niña weather phenomenon. As a result, this year’s January/February crop harvests in the agro-pastoral and riverine areas of southern Somalia, where people predominantly rely on rainfall for subsistence farming, were only a fifth of the average according to the Food Security & Nutrition Working Group. In these regions, the number of people in crisis had by February this year increased by almost 70 per cent to 440,000. Due to disproportionate access to farming inputs, female-headed households have suffered most.

Further, while the long rainy season (gu’) normally starts in early April, this year it was late and poorly distributed across much of the country. In and around Mogadishu, it only started raining in the second week of May. Throughout April, the rainfall performance remained significantly below normal, according to the African Development Trust.

Humanitarian relief efforts have fared little better. In December 2010, the UN launched the 2011 Consolidated Appeal for Somalia, asking for nearly $530 million to help it cater for approximately 2 million people. Though this represented an 11 per cent decrease from the 2010 mid-year funding request, only half the funds have so far been received. The funding shortage is biting hard. “We began having to cut ration sizes from February, to try to eke out what food we did have coming through the system,” says World Food Programme spokesman Peter Smerdon. “In May, we had only about 30 per cent of the food we need to feed the one million people that we were expecting to feed this time of the year. In fact, we’re feeding 66 per cent of the one million people we should be feeding, but the amount of food being given out is only 33 per cent of what we should be giving out.”

In the wake of the drought, as local food production has plummeted, food prices, propelled by rising fuel costs, have skyrocketed. Since December 2010, the average daily cost of food for Somali families has increased between 21 and 27 per cent, with areas in the south reporting increases of 37 per cent, according to the USAid. Prices of local staples are showing significant increases. Concern Worldwide, an international humanitarian agency working in Somalia, says the cost of cereals has increased by up to 135 per cent since last year. Fews Net estimates that red sorghum prices have risen by up to 240 per cent over the same period. In general, current maize prices are around their peak levels of mid-2008 during the global food price crisis, while those of red sorghum have surpassed them.

According to the FAO, only 40-50 per cent of Somalia’s per capita cereal needs are met locally and approximately 500,000 tonnes of grains must be commercially imported to support the population. The Food Security & Nutrition Working Group says prices of imported cereals are stabilising but remain above the 5-year average in most markets, partly due to high fuel prices. The cost of imported rice, stable in the last quarter of 2010, rose during the first months of 2011 and is currently up to 30 per cent higher than the previous year. This is despite a steady drop of about 3 per cent in the global price of rice since January this year.

The combination of extremely high food prices and plummeting livestock prices has substantially eroded the purchasing power of Somalia’s pastoral communities. Pastoralists depend on livestock for all their basic needs and animal sales are often used to buy grain. However, in Juba region for example, between May 2010 and May 2011, the value of one cow collapsed from 430 kg to 161 kg of maize. FSNAU notes that increased camel exports at the Bossaso port — 7 per cent of total livestock between January and May compared with 2 per cent over the same period last year — are additional indicators of stress selling in pastoral areas. A statement issued by Oxfam at the beginning of July concludes, “Livelihoods have already been decimated, but there is now also a real risk of large-scale loss of life.”

Though mass deaths on the scale of the Ethiopian famine are yet to be reported, worrying signs of localised starvation are emerging, especially insurgent-controlled areas where it is impossible to send aid.

Further, pressure must be brought to bear on the insurgents and their supporters to allow for the immediate distribution of emergency supplies to areas under their control, where the situation is particularly worrying. In this regard, Amisom, whose mandate covers the facilitation of humanitarian relief, must be equipped to do so. Indeed, all parties, from the donor community to the local authorities in Somalia, must lift existing restrictions on the delivery of aid to allow the humanitarian community to effectively address the crisis.

Nearly three decades ago, Mohammed Amin showed the world the face of a calamity, and the world responded. Action now to avert a similar tragedy would be the best tribute the global community could pay to his memory.

USDA Blog

June 30, 2011

The USDA and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have once again joined forces to collaborate with individuals and organizations that feed hungry people, promote sustainable development and provide technical assistance around the world.  This is the thirteenth year of the International Food Aid and Development Conference, and I was proud to deliver keynote remarks here in Kansas City, Mo. Nearly 600 people from more than 25 countries discussed what has worked, what has not, and what we can do in the future to improve our food assistance and program delivery.

The U.S. government’s international food assistance programs will benefit 5.2 million people in the developing world this year. The challenges of global food security are enormous — nearly one billion people are malnourished, and this number will likely grow as the world population continues to rise. Meanwhile, the United States, like many other nations, is facing serious budget pressures. In addition, commodity prices and demand continue to rise, squeezing food assistance dollars further.

In Kansas City, I shared the stage with many distinguished speakers, among them Bangladesh’s and Mozambique’s Ambassadors to the United States; USAID’s Administrator Raj Shah; and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration Deputy Administrator. In addition, we recognized the President of Catholic Relief Services Ken Hackett for his 40-year contribution to alleviating global poverty and hunger.

Over the past two days, we discussed how we can take our programs and our partnerships to the next level—how we can better coordinate and target our efforts with limited resources, embrace innovative approaches to improve the quality and nutritional content of U.S. food aid products, reduce post-harvest losses, manage the effect of food and transportation prices on food assistance, enhance our global food security efforts through public-private partnerships, and increase the long-term sustainability of our programs.

While we acknowledge the challenges we face, this conference serves as a means to celebrate our successes and provide insight into new and innovative ways that we can work smarter, while providing food assistance to some of the world’s poorest people. I am proud of the work we are doing together and individually to answer the call of those in need and share our bounty with those less fortunate.

USDA Blog

June 10, 2011

It was quite an active week as I represented the USDA at the 10th annual African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum.  While in Zambia, I had the opportunity to see firsthand a USDA-funded food assistance program in action.  This included a Local and Regional Procurement (LRP) Pilot Project that is providing monthly food baskets to households impacted by HIV/AIDS.  LRP is designed to use local and regional purchasing to help meet urgent food needs in developing countries and in areas faced with food crises and disasters.

The Zambia Local and Regional Procurement Program (ZLRP) is a yearlong project providing nutritional food to nearly 10,000 rural households that care for orphans and vulnerable children in Zambia’s Chongwe, Chibombo and Mumbwa districts. Land O’Lakes is working with World Vision to implement the project with USDA funding. The food these households receive allows them to leave their crops in the ground until they are fully ready to harvest, and thus are more nutritious.  This in turn enables the families more time and energy to pursue other activities to improve their livelihoods and quality of life.

Foreign Agricultural Service Acting Administrator Suzanne Heinen (right) joins Land O’Lakes representative She Mayo (left) as they meet with local farmers at a market in Kafululu, Zambia on June 7. At this market, Land O’Lakes monitors food prices to ensure commodity procurements and distributions do not have a disruptive impact on the market. USDA has funded a Local and Regional Procurement (LRP) Pilot Project designed to use local and regional purchasing to help improve the nutrition and quality of life of Zambian households impacted by HIV/AIDS.

Foreign Agricultural Service Acting Administrator Suzanne Heinen (right) joins Land O’Lakes representative She Mayo (left) as they meet with local farmers at a market in Kafululu, Zambia on June 7. At this market, Land O’Lakes monitors food prices to ensure commodity procurements and distributions do not have a disruptive impact on the market. USDA has funded a Local and Regional Procurement (LRP) Pilot Project designed to use local and regional purchasing to help improve the nutrition and quality of life of Zambian households impacted by HIV/AIDS.

My tour also took me to Kafalulu, Zambia.  I went to a commodity distribution site and a hydro-powered hammer mill.  I met with several individuals directly benefitting from the project.  It was wonderful meeting a young widow whose children are benefitting from the improved quality of food they’re receiving.  Thanks to the rations, the young mother has extra time which she is using to prepare a garden.

When I visited the Zambian Agricultural Commodity Exchange (ZAMACE), where the commodities are purchased through competitive tenders, I saw a local market where Land O’Lakes is monitoring food prices to ensure that commodity procurements and distributions do not have a disruptive impact on the local market.  I was charmed by the warm reception we received in the communities, and was impressed to see the level of community involvement.  Because all of the food distributed is bought from local farmers, millers and processors, the ZLRP project is strengthening Zambian agribusinesses.

In all, Land O’ Lakes and World Vision will distribute 3,600 metric tons of maize meal, 500 metric tons of beans and 200 metric tons of vegetable oil, all from Zambian sources.  An estimated 126 metric tons of high-energy protein supplements will also be given to households with children between the ages of six and 24 months.  Nearly 60,000 Zambians are expected to receive food aid through this project alone. This is just one of 22 worldwide projects funded through the USDA LRP Project.

As part of this pilot project, an independent evaluation will be conducted to examine the timeliness and efficiency of using LRP as a tool to enhance U.S. Government food assistance programs.  The findings of this study will be submitted in a formal report to Congress by June 2012.

The LRP pilot projects are one of the many ways USDA initiatives around the world are feeding those in need, developing agricultural infrastructure and ensuring international food security.

USAID Frontlines reports that the Food for Peace program in Mozambique has had great success reducing childhood hunger and improving access to food for the poor and is a partnership of NGOs, USAID and the Government of Mozambique. Click here to listen to the podcast and watch the slideshow.

Alliance for Global Food Security

April 26, 2011

In a letter to Under Secretary of State Robert Hormats the Alliance for Global Food Security urges higher food aid commitments in the new Food Aid Convention (FAC) that is being developed by donor countries, pointing out that current commitments only total about 5 million metric tons, half of what is needed annually to meet minimum needs.  The letter also asks that the current programming options for food aid stay intact and that information about whether donors have met their annual commitments be made publically available.

The FAC is an agreement by eight donor countries (the European Commission is treated as a “country”) to provide a minimum amount of food aid each year to developing countries.  First established in 1967 as part of the International Grains Arrangement, the latest version was put into force in July, 1999. [Text: http://www.foodaidconvention.org/en/index/faconvention.aspx.].  Donor governments are currently negotiating the terms of a new FAC, which they hope to complete by July 2011.

What makes the FAC so important and unique and that it seeks to assure predictable amounts of food aid are available even when prices fluctuate.  That is why commitments are made in terms of food aid tonnages rather than in terms of funds provided.  The Alliance therefore warns against changing the FAC from a tonnage basis to a cash basis or expanding it to include other types of assistance or food security programs in general.  Moreover, the Alliance notes that there are other forums for discussing food security and development assistance, including the restructured UN Committee on World Food Security (www.fao.org/cfs), the G-8 (L’Aquila food security funding commitments) and the Organization for Cooperation and Economic Development.

FAC members are Argentina, Australia, Canada, EC, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, and the USA.  The FAC lists the amounts committed by each member and describes the types of food aid that can be counted toward a country’s commitment.  Since commodity prices vary year-to-year, countries meet their commitments based on amounts provided, reported in “wheat equivalent” tonnages.

The FAC is administered by the Food Aid Committee of the International Grains Council (IGC), which is comprised of representatives of the donor countries that are party to the FAC.  Decisions are reached by consensus; proceedings and reports are not public.  The Secretariat of the IGC in London performs administrative duties, mainly collecting reports on levels of food aid provided each year and calculating whether a country has met its FAC commitment.

The members of the Alliance are private voluntary organizations and cooperatives that are committed to addressing hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity. They operate in over 100 developing countries, implementing emergency and development programs that directly engage, support and build the capacity of local communities, enterprises and institutions.

Wall Street Journal
April 16, 2011

WASHINGTON — Spiking food prices have pushed the world’s poor countries to “one shock away from a full-blown crisis,” the head of the World Bank warned Saturday.”

This is the biggest threat today to the world’s poor, where we risk loosing a generation,” World Bank President Robert Zoellick at a press briefing on encouraging global development.

 The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, holding spring meetings here, said skyrocketing food and fuel prices are the most serious near-term risk to developing economies.

 ”I’m concerned that commodity stocks are relatively low and if you have one other weather event in some of these areas, you really take a danger zone and start to push people over the edge,” Mr. Zoellick said. “That’s why we need also need measures on the volatility side.”

 The World Bank earlier this week said that its index of food prices shows the cost of basic food was up 36% on the year in March, and since June last year, 44 million people had fallen below the poverty line around the world as a result of higher food prices. If prices rise further, tens of millions more could be also be pushed into poverty, it warned.

 Mr. Zoellick said the bank is with agriculture ministers from the Group of 20 largest industrial and emerging market countries to in June approve a list of polices that could help fend off a full-blown food crisis. He said the G-20 should drop export restrictions for humanitarian purchasers such the U.N. global food program. “We need the humanitarian purchasers to at least get access,” he said.

Although the G-20 is already supporting the proposal, Mr. Zoellick said the bank wants to help U.N. improve information about the quality and quantity of grain stocks around the world.

 The bank could also help developing countries that don’t have the capability to tap advanced commodity and futures markets to help hedge against unforeseen food shortages, working with U.S. and European banks. “We could provide them intermediary service,” he said.

Join Food for the Hungry (FH) in supporting HungerFast.org
March 29, 2011

In early March, Congress proposed a resolution to slash:

• U.S. food aid programs by 41 percent ($687 million)
• Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance funding by 67 percent ($875 million)
• Development assistance by 30 percent ($747 million)
• Global health and childhood survival programs by 15 percent ($365 million)

The budget cuts would deny approximately 18 million poor and vulnerable people life-saving help.

“These programs account for less than one-half of 1 percent of the total federal budget, thus cutting them to the bone will have absolutely no measurable impact on the federal deficit; instead,  it will result in millions of people around the world falling deeper into poverty,” said Dave Evans, U.S. President for Food for the Hungry.

Advocate for the poor

From March 28 to April 24, join FH and Tony Hall, executive director of the Alliance to End Hunger and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture, in fasting to save programs that benefit vulnerable people worldwide.
Partner with the FH family around the world in participating:

PRAY—Commit to praying about the hunger fast and for Congress to have wisdom as they consider budget cuts.

FAST—Join the Hunger Fast movement by skipping one meal every day and abstaining from solid food one day per week.

LIVE ON LESS—Commit to living on $2 of food per day to acknowledge the 2.1 billion people who survive on less than $2 per day.

SPEAK OUT—Write a letter to your congressional representative and senator and ask them to not cut humanitarian and development assistance programs.

Tell family and friends about this issue and encourage them to participate.

GIVE—Help hungry people today by supporting the work of Food for the Hungry worldwide.

Visit http://hungerfast.org/ to learn more about Tony Hall and the Hunger Fast

March 23, 2011
Des Moines Register

The Obama administration says it’s making progress in persuading other countries to avoid the export bans, hoarding and other measures blamed for worsening food price spikes in 2008. But officials with the administration and aid organizations are worried that Congress may worsen hunger problems by slashing funding for food and agricultural assistance.

Susan Bradley of the U.S. Agency for International Development said the administration is using lessons from the 2008 food crisis “to really bring home and to open up the dialogue as to the negative impacts of export bans, import bans and tariffs, things that actually contribute to instability.”

Bradley, who is senior adviser for USAID’s Bureau for Food Security, was speaking at a briefing today for congressional aides and aid organizations.

Export bans were blamed in 2008 for worsening food shortages in part by discouraging farmers in countries that imposed them from increasing production.

Instead, the administration is pushing developing countries to consider subsidy programs that will increase food supplies. At a recent international strategy meeting in Ethiopia, officials from developing countries brought private commodity traders to the consultations, a sign that governments are considering the impact of policies on markets, administration officials say.

At the same time, the administration is worried that spending cuts will hamstring the administration’s long-range goal of increasing food production in poor countries through its Feed the Future initiative. The administration wants to spend $1.4 billion on the program in fiscal 12, $600 million more than the program got in 2010. But the Republican-controlled House is proposing to cut total spending for the program to between $310 million and $630 million. International food aid also would be reduced.

Funding for food and agricultural assistance needs to be increased, not cut, when food prices are rising, said Alan Jury, director of U.S. relations for the UN’s World Food Program.

When the cost of food rises significantly, the poor cut back on their nutrition and to pay for food often pull children out of school to save the tuition, he said. “What you’re seeing is a slow insidious cutback on everything those communities can do to build health and economic assets,” he said.

Wendy Chamberlin, who was ambassador to Pakistan during President George W. Bush’s administration, warned that spikes in food prices could fuel unrest in the Middle East. Some Jordanians, for example, spend 80 percent of their income on food, she said.” Food and food vulnerabilities impact directly on the United States’ security,” she said.

Wall Street Journal
March 7, 2011
Caroline Henshaw

LONDON—The world has become increasingly vulnerable to food crises in the wake of the global financial crisis and the commodity boom of 2007-08, the United Nations’ food body said Monday.

 In its flagship report, the Food and Agriculture Organization said while world food prices fell after spiking in 2008, they remain elevated and volatile, a situation likely to continue owing to rising production costs, growing demand from biofuels and pressure on supplies from a rapidly-expanding population.

 ”The experience of the food price and financial crises have provided a sharp reminder of the vulnerability of world food security to shocks in the global food system and the world economy,” said the report.

 Some food prices have more than doubled this year after weather problems in key producers curbed the global production of wheat, corn, cotton and sugar. The FAO’s food-price index rose 2.2% on month in February, the eighth-consecutive monthly rise, to the highest level in real and nominal terms since the FAO started monitoring prices in 1990, according to data from the body.

 Charities warn the rising cost of staple foods could push the number of chronically-hungry people in the world above 1 billion, as happened in 2009.

 ”Millions more people are sliding into poverty as they struggle to afford basic food supplies and more and more are at risk of going hungry,” said Oxfam’s food-policy adviser Thierry Kesteloot.

 The FAO report said that with global food consumption outpacing supply, “prices are projected to increase over the next decade and to continue to be at levels, on average, above those of the past decade.”

 World food production, as measured by the FAO’s production index, is forecast to have grown 0.8% in 2010 after rising 3.8% in 2008 and 2.6% in 2007, as producers responded to the high prices of the food crisis.

 Global food consumption, which has been rising at an average of around 2% a year, was only marginally dented by the recession, the FAO said. Trade in food is expected to have contracted again in 2010 after increasing 4%-6% annually before the financial crisis.

 ”Episodes of high prices are detrimental to food security, and the high uncertainty associated with price volatility affects producer viability and may lead to reduced agricultural investments,” said the report.

 Problems such as climate change are also expected to leave markets more vulnerable to shocks: the number of Asian countries affected by food crises doubled from five a year in 1981-2002 to 10 in 2003-2009, for example.

 ”Since the mid-1980s, the general trend has been towards an increase in the number of countries affected by emergencies,” the report said.

 In the face of such growing pressure, the FAO said governments must boost investment in agriculture. It highlighted that closing the gender gap in agricultural production by empowering women could potentially boost developing countries’ output by 2.5%-4% and feed an extra 100-150 million starving people.

 ”The recent food and financial crises, the uncoordinated policy responses and continuing fears over global food-market turmoil have underscored the need for action by the international community,” it said.

To read the full report, please click here.

Editorial – Mason City Globe Gazette
March 6, 2011

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported last week that its Food Price Index — a measure of the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities — rose in February for the eighth consecutive month. Worldwide, food is more expensive now than it’s been since the index was started in 1990. It’s a problem here. The food-at-home index rose 2.1 percent in the last year, as measured by the Consumer Price Index. It’s going to get worse. Joseph Glauber, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s chief economist, last month predicted record prices for corn, wheat and soybeans in the crop year ahead. That’s good news for farmers, but as costs are passed down the supply chain, food prices could rise another 3 percent to 4 percent over the rest of the year. Things are far worse elsewhere. More than 1 billion of the world’s 6.1 billion people can’t afford enough to eat. High food prices are one of the root causes of unrest in Africa and the Middle East. The World Bank estimates that since last June, rising food prices have pushed another 44 million people into “extreme poverty” — living on less than $1.25 a day. The percentage of the world’s population living in extreme poverty actually has been falling since 1990, in large part because of major economic gains in China and the rest of East Asia and the Pacific. But that has brought increased demand for (a) oil, critical for food production, and (b) animal protein. Animals are a hugely inefficient means of processing grain into food. Add to that using corn for biofuel; diminished government-purchased food stockpiles; erratic weather patterns that brought extreme drought in Russia, China and elsewhere; and profiteering in the commodities markets. The result is a world food shortage. One other factor: the worldwide financial collapse of 2008-2009. Western governments are retrenching. One result is that the special World Bank fund set up in 2008 to boost worldwide food production has received only about 2 percent of the $22 billion promised by the G-20 group of developed nations. The United States has delivered only $66.6 million of the $3.5 billion it promised, and that was when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. Now Republican budget cutters have targeted “foreign aid” for the knife. The Obama administration’s entire foreign operations budget request for the current year is $36.4 billion, less than 1 percent of the total U.S. budget. That includes not just food and humanitarian relief, but military assistance, economic development, narcotics control, health programs and credit resources. The budget request for the two major food programs — Food for Peace and the McGovern-Dole Food for Education program — was about $1.9 billion. Before cooler heads prevailed, House Republicans wanted to cut that to $1 billion. But this year’s budget battles aren’t over yet. U.S. food assistance programs are flawed. Often there is no cooperation by local governments. U.S.-provided food can displace local agriculture. The requirement that 75 percent of food assistance be shipped on the few remaining U.S.-flagged vessels raises costs and reduces effectiveness. These flaws can and should be addressed, but not by turning our back to a hungry world. In large part, the future security of this nation depends on the present food security elsewhere.

World Vision

February 23, 2011

Leading relief NGOs, in joint letter, warn that House budget cuts jeopardize life-saving disaster relief

World Vision calls on Senate to reverse cuts to effective humanitarian assistance in U.S. budget

As U.S. Senate lawmakers prepare to decide on fiscal 2011 spending next week, World Vision and other top humanitarian relief agencies call on them to restore the funding stripped away from effective and life-saving international disaster assistance and development programs in a bill approved by the House.

The budget resolution approved by the House on Feb. 19 would slash funding for foreign disaster assistance by more than two thirds (67 percent, $875 million) from FY 2010 enacted levels, putting in jeopardy America’s ability to prepare for and respond to the next major earthquake, tsunami or flood.

“These cuts are so drastic they will cripple America’s ability to respond to future disasters and forfeit our longstanding humanitarian leadership abroad,” said Robert Zachritz, government relations director for World Vision in the U.S. “They are disproportionate and devastating to America’s humanitarian mission, jeopardizing the success of emergency preparedness and response, as well as development initiatives.”

More than two dozen leading organizations that implement U.S.-led disaster responses on the ground, including World Vision, today released a joint letter to Congressional leadership stating: “The United States has – with strong bipartisan support – long been the backbone of worldwide humanitarian response,” saving hundreds of thousands of lives each year. But with these cuts, the U.S. “might simply fail to show up.”

The letter cites instances where the U.S. would forfeit strategic leadership, and reminds lawmakers that emergency appropriations made after a disaster has occurred are too late and insufficient for effective disaster response, which requires resources and preparedness.

World Vision, which responded to nearly 80 emergencies last year including the Haiti earthquake and Pakistan floods, witnesses the positive impact such international programs make on the lives of the world’s most vulnerable people.

“While there is a real need to address the present budget crisis, these reductions target a tiny portion of the U.S. budget – just half of one percent of spending – at levels far outstripping the downsizing of other accounts,“ said Adam Taylor, vice president of advocacy for World Vision in the U.S.

The House resolution would also reduce U.S. food aid programs by 41 percent ($687 million), development assistance by 30 percent ($747 million) and global health and childhood survival programs by 15 percent ($365 million).

“If the Senate allows these cuts to stand, it would in effect be crippling America’s ability to carry out its foreign policy objectives through humanitarian and development assistance,” said Taylor. “That’s neither smart foreign policy nor smart budgeting.”

”We are calling for this crucial support for the world’s most vulnerable to be restored, without depleting other cost-effective assistance measures for the poorest of the poor” said Taylor.

World Vision is a global Christian relief and development organization with one million American donors, representing every state and congressional district. This constituency demonstrates that a broad base of U.S. voters and taxpayers prioritize development, feeding the hungry and protecting vulnerable lives.

Click here to read full letter to House Leadership

World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities worldwide reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice. For more information, visit www.worldvision.org

House cuts would deny food help to roughly 18 million people, argues the director of a food aid alliance.

Ellen Levinson
February 20, 2011

The House of Representatives has put America’s international food aid programs on the chopping block, last week slashing these cost-effective and life-saving programs to their lowest levels in over a decade. While the House’s fiscal year 2011 funding bill cuts 10.3 percent from non-defense appropriations, it disproportionately cuts food assistance by an astonishing 42 percent.   Click here to read more.

AFP
PARIS – 20th February 2011

World Bank president Robert Zoellick warned leaders of the top global economies Saturday that the world is reaching a danger point where soaring food prices threaten further political instability.

“I mentioned that we are reaching a danger point,” Zoellick said, adding that he had urged G20 finance ministers and central bank chiefs meeting here to “put food first in 2011.”

Zoellick said rising prices would eventually result in increased food supplies but in the intervening couple of years, “there could be an awful lot of turmoil and governments could fall and societies could go into turmoil.”

Soaring food, fuel and other basic costs have been one of the key factors driving political unrest across the Middle East and North Africa which has forced the ouster of long-standing autocratic rulers in Egypt and Tunisia.

“We need to be sensitive and have a fingertip feel on what is happening in terms of food prices and its potential effect on social instability,” Zoellick told a conference call.

He said the international community needs to be ready to act quickly to help countries such as Tunisia to cope with economic shocks as they try to manage political transition.

The World Bank warned ahead of the two-day G20 meeting that food prices rose by 15 percent between October 2010 and January 2011, pushing another 44 million people into poverty.

France, which holds the presidency of the Group of 20 top developing and developed countries, has made reducing price volatility in basic commodities including food one of its key goals.

Zoellick said G20 ministers were receptive to some of the ideas the World Bank has proposed and that the meeting would provide further momentum for action.

“In sum, I’d say there is a list of items here that is very do-able and the best antidote to complaints that the G20 is a talk shop is to take real action. And action for the most vulnerable people is the best form of that.”

Zoellick said the situation is more concerning today than several years ago as there is increased demand from emerging markets and severe weather has reduced the ability of farmers to respond.

There have been proposals to slap limits on commodity trading to discourage speculative trading and reduce price volatility but the World Bank chief said “you counter volatility with better information” about the markets.

He said he also favoured a “code of conduct” for food export bans so as to ensure humanitarian food aid programmes are not affected

World Bank president Robert Zoellick warned leaders of the top global economies Saturday that the world is reaching a danger point where soaring food prices threaten further political instability.

“I mentioned that we are reaching a danger point,” Zoellick said, adding that he had urged G20 finance ministers and central bank chiefs meeting here to “put food first in 2011.”

Zoellick said rising prices would eventually result in increased food supplies but in the intervening couple of years, “there could be an awful lot of turmoil and governments could fall and societies could go into turmoil.”

Soaring food, fuel and other basic costs have been one of the key factors driving political unrest across the Middle East and North Africa which has forced the ouster of long-standing autocratic rulers in Egypt and Tunisia.

“We need to be sensitive and have a fingertip feel on what is happening in terms of food prices and its potential effect on social instability,” Zoellick told a conference call.

He said the international community needs to be ready to act quickly to help countries such as Tunisia to cope with economic shocks as they try to manage political transition.

The World Bank warned ahead of the two-day G20 meeting that food prices rose by 15 percent between October 2010 and January 2011, pushing another 44 million people into poverty.

France, which holds the presidency of the Group of 20 top developing and developed countries, has made reducing price volatility in basic commodities including food one of its key goals.

Zoellick said G20 ministers were receptive to some of the ideas the World Bank has proposed and that the meeting would provide further momentum for action.

“In sum, I’d say there is a list of items here that is very do-able and the best antidote to complaints that the G20 is a talk shop is to take real action. And action for the most vulnerable people is the best form of that.”

Zoellick said the situation is more concerning today than several years ago as there is increased demand from emerging markets and severe weather has reduced the ability of farmers to respond.

There have been proposals to slap limits on commodity trading to discourage speculative trading and reduce price volatility but the World Bank chief said “you counter volatility with better information” about the markets.

He said he also favoured a “code of conduct” for food export bans so as to ensure humanitarian food aid programmes are not affected.

The Hagstrom Report
Monday, February 14, 2011 | Volume 1, Number 25

By JERRY HAGSTROM

If the budget cuts proposed by House Republicans for the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year go into effect, nearly 18 million hungry people worldwide will lose American food aid and farmers will lose benefits guaranteed to them under the 2008 farm bill, key lobbyists said over the weekend as they began campaigns to try to stop the cuts in either the House or the Senate.

The federal government is operating under a continuing resolution in effect until March 4, and Congress needs to pass a new spending bill by that date. This 2011 proposal, which was announced Friday and would cover the period until the end of the fiscal year on September 30, is unrelated to the budget proposal for fiscal year 2012 that President Obama is scheduled to announce today. The Obama proposal would cover the fiscal year beginning October 1.

Responding to the political sentiment that led to the rise of the tea party movement and the shift of control of the House of Representatives from Democratic to Republican, the House Appropriations Committee released a proposal for financing the federal government through the end of the fiscal year that includes a $60 billion cut in government spending.

Of that $60 billion cut, $5.2 billion or 22 percent would come from the agriculture function and there would be additional cuts to food aid in the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development budgets. The agriculture budget cut includes a $747 million reduction in the special nutrition program for women, infants and children known as WIC, but the impact of that cut is unclear because the birth rate is down.

“This year, our nation is spending $1.5 trillion more than we have, running our debt to $14 trillion. The taxpayers have told us loud and clear that this is simply unacceptable, and have demanded that we get our nation’s fiscal house in order,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., said in a statement when he released the budget. “My committee has taken a thoughtful look at each and every one of the programs we intend to cut, and have made determinations based on this careful analysis.”

Senate Democrats, who control that chamber, have already described the House Republicans’ proposal as unrealistic. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, said in a news release, “It is clear from this proposal that House Republicans are committed to pursuing an ineffective approach to deficit reduction that attempts to balance the budget on the back of domestic discretionary investments, which constitute only a small percentage of overall federal spending. The priorities identified in this proposal for some of the largest cuts —environmental protection, health care, energy, science, and law enforcement — are essential to the current and future well-being of our economy and communities across the country.”

The House Republican spending proposal is unlikely to become law as written as the Democratic-controlled Senate and President Obama will have to agree to the final bill, but it has laid out the beginning of the House negotiating position. The House is expected to act on the proposal by the end of this week, but the Senate may move so slowly that there may be another continuing resolution before Congress passes a final bill to fund the government through September 30.

Ellen Levinson, executive director of the Alliance for Global Food Security, a coalition of humanitarian and industry groups that deliver food aid, said the Republican proposal would cut U.S. international food assistance to its lowest levels in a decade, dropping the food aid budget 42 percent or $800 million from its fiscal year 2010 level.

“Cutting food aid is particularly devastating now, because food prices have soared to their highest levels in decades and low-income, food-deficit countries are struggling with growing hunger and unrest,” Levinson said.

U.S. food aid now reaches 50 million people per year, she said. The House proposal would cut 15 million people from the Food for Peace Program, which targets communities where there is persistent hunger and 30 percent or more children are undernourished, and cut 2.5 million children from the McGovern-Dole Food for Education Program, Levinson said.

“Reductions in Food for Peace will also severely limit the ability of the United States to provide assistance in response to conflicts, drought and other disasters, when hunger sets in quickly and people’s lives are endangered,” she added.

The United States has traditionally been the world’s biggest donor of food aid, and Levinson’s alliance on Sunday called on Congress “to restore funding to the Food for Peace and McGovern-Dole Food for Education Programs to assure that the United States continues its leadership role in the fight against global hunger.”

U.S. farm groups and shipping companies have formed a coalition with humanitarian groups to include food aid in the farm bill and other legislation. The impact of an $800 million reduction in government food aid purchases on the commodity markets is unknown.

Meanwhile, Ferd Hoefner, the Washington lobbyist for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, said in a blog post for his members Saturday that the cut proposed in agriculture would be “enormous.” Hoefner noted that, while the budget resolution focuses mostly on discretionary spending, it includes more than $500 million in cuts to the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, the Conservation Stewardship Program, the Wetlands Reserve Program, and the Biomass Crop Assistance Program.

“NSAC strongly opposes the cuts to farm bill mandatory conservation and renewable energy programs,” Hoefner wrote. “If Congress decides that deficit reduction requires farm bill spending to be on the table, then we strongly believe ALL farm bill spending should be on the table and that cuts should be fair and equitable and based on the merits. Singling out the 10 percent of farm bill spending represented by conservation and renewable energy spending to take all the cuts is grossly unfair. In our view, either everything is on the table, or nothing is on the table.

“We also believe the appropriations bill is not the appropriate venue for making farm bill cuts,” he added. “Such adjustments to the farm bill should be made by the Agriculture committees and only in the context of a broad agreement to find savings in mandatory programs on a government-wide basis.”

Hoefner said the bill would eliminate (“zero out” in budget jargon) many sustainable agriculture programs, including the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, Organic Transitions research program, the USDA Office of Advocacy and Outreach (for minority and beginning farmers), the USDA Office of Tribal Relations, Farm Service Agency conservation loans, the Resource Conservation and Development program, the regional integrated pest management centers, the regional Rural Development Centers, the National Integrated Food Safety Initiative, and the Hunger Free Communities program.

“NSAC intends to work with members of Congress to pursue amendments on the floor next week to restore funding to many of these important functions,” Hoefner wrote. “It is unacceptable in our view to focus terminations on very modest programs for sustainable and organic agriculture, beginning and minority farmers, and initiatives to reduce pesticides and pathogens in food production. Funding cuts should be based on careful evaluation of the need for and effectiveness of programs, not simply aimed to chop out small programs that only just barely begin to level the playing field for chronically underserved parts of agriculture.”

Hoefner also noted that the bill’s provision to limit the Conservation Stewardship Program by $39 million would force the government to break the terms of the five-year contracts already signed with farmers in 2009 and 2010 by delaying contract payments.

“Reneging on contracts already in effect would truly represent government at its very worst,” Hoefner said. He also noted that the proposal to cut the Wetlands Reserve Program by 19 percent or nearly 48,000 acres would be a permanent reduction in the acreage level for the WRP established in the 2008 farm bill.

USDA’s National Institute for Food and Agriculture (formerly the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service) would also take a big hit under the bill, Hoefner said.

“Formula funds” to land-grant colleges and institutions would go up by $25 million relative to fiscal year 2010, but competitive grant programs would be funded at their 2010 levels rather than at the significant increased levels called for in President Obama’s budget request. The agency’s administrative funds would also be cut, USDA’s Agricultural Research Service would be cut by 10 percent.

• Alliance for Global Food Security
• National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

Alliance for Global Food Security
February 13, 2011

The Alliance for Global Food Security urges Congress to restore funding to the Food for Peace and McGovern-Dole Food for Education Programs to assure that the United States continues its leadership role in the fight against global hunger.

 The House Continuing Resolution released on February 11th (H.R. 1) would reduce international food assistance to its lowest levels in a decade, slashing 42%, or $800 million, from its FY 2010 level.  The bill would eliminate nearly 18 million beneficiaries.  Ellen Levinson, Alliance Executive Director, points out, “Cutting food aid is particularly devastating now, because food prices have soared to their highest levels in decades and low-income, food-deficit countries are struggling with growing hunger and unrest.”

 Put in perspective, funding for international relations comprises little more than one percent of the federal budget.  Of those international funds, food assistance programs receive only one-third of one percent.  Nonetheless, they reach and improve the lives of nearly 50 million people a year.

 With the House Bill, over 15 million people would be cut from the Food for Peace Program, which targets communities where there is persistent hunger and 30 percent or more children are under-nourished.  Reductions in Food for Peace will also severely limit the ability of the United States to provide assistance in response to conflicts, drought and other disasters, when hunger sets in quickly and people’s lives are endangered.  An additional 2 1/2 million food aid recipients – school children – will be dropped from the McGovern-Dole Food for Education Program. 

 The cuts in Food for Peace threaten operations in thousands of poor communities where humanitarian and development organizations provide food aid along with training and capacity building in health, nutrition, and agriculture and enterprise development.  Those programs have effectively improved nutrition, household incomes, food supplies, and agricultural and food systems.

 The members of the Alliance are private voluntary organizations and cooperatives that are committed to addressing hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity. They operate in over 100 developing countries, implementing emergency and development programs that directly engage, support and build the capacity of local communities, enterprises and institutions.

Alliance for Global Food Security
February 10, 2011

The Alliance for Global Food Security urges the House of Representatives to reconsider its proposed $544 million cut in international food assistance programs.  Ellen Levinson, Alliance Executive Director, explained, “Reduced funding would set back efforts in low-income, food insecure countries to increase productivity and incomes in the agricultural sector, to reduce vulnerability to food crises, and to improve nutrition and incomes of the poor.  It would be particularly devastating now, because food prices have soared to their highest levels in decades and low-income, food deficit countries are struggling with growing hunger and unrest.” 

In a letter to congressional appropriations committees, the Alliance, which is comprised of humanitarian and development organizations that conduct programs in over 100 low-income countries, urged Congress to provide the funding requested by the Obama Administration for FY 2011 for the Food for Peace and McGovern-Dole International Food for Education Programs. 

The Administration’s funding request for the Food for Peace program for FY 2011 is already $371 million less than the funding level for that program in FY 2008.  This is because up until the last fiscal year, it was regular practice to under-fund the Food for Peace program as part of the regular appropriations process and then attempt to meet the shortfall by bolstering the program later in the year through supplemental appropriations bills.  This piecemeal funding was fraught with inefficiencies, making it difficult for government agencies to control costs and procure and send commodities to needy countries in a timely manner. 

This is the second year that the Administration requested adequate funding for the Food for Peace Program through the regular appropriations process to meet minimal anticipated needs, thereby reducing reliance on supplemental appropriations except for unanticipated crises due to war, economic conditions and natural disasters (such as the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti).  Sufficient upfront funding is working well:  it has allowed U.S. government agencies to implement improved commodity procurement strategies which ultimately save the U.S. government and the American taxpayer money.  

The Alliance letter notes, “While only a small part of the U.S. international affairs budget, the funding requested for the Food for Peace and McGovern-Dole Programs for FY 2011 would nonetheless help nearly 50 million people.”  A $544 million reduction would cut the number of beneficiaries in those food aid programs by approximately 12 million.

Sufficient funding for the Food for Peace program is critical for advancing U.S. humanitarian and security efforts.  It provides a reliable source of appropriate commodities for emergencies that can be used to save lives and to give people the chance to recover.  Moreover, by using food aid in development programs in poor communities where food insecurity is persistent, Food for Peace also contributes to long-term food security. 

Developmental food aid programs are implemented by non-profit organizations (“private voluntary organizations”) and cooperatives in partnership with thousands of local business, governmental and organizational partners and incorporate strategies that:

• Show measurable results, such as improvements in agricultural production, incomes, household food supplies, child nutrition and dietary and sanitation practices; and,
• Build local capacity and infrastructure and prepare communities, organizations, government institutions, and businesses to expand activities, reap benefits and decrease vulnerability to hunger after the program is complete.

The McGovern-Dole Food for Education Program also has developmental goals, particularly to increase school enrollment, attendance and educational quality.  Meals in schools and take-home food packages for children who regularly attend classes serve as incentives for families to send their girls to school.  Longitudinal studies have shown that when girls receive at least a primary education, they tend to start their families later, adopt appropriate health practices and lead more productive lives.

For further information on U.S. food aid programs, please see www.foodaid.org.

-##-

DesMoinesRegister.com
9:57 PM, Feb 13, 2011 | by Philip Brasher

House Republicans are making the first bid as battles over the federal budget deficit heat up this week. President Barack Obama releases his 2012 budget  on Monday.

But Republicans have released plans to slash spending for the current spending year by $61 billion below the 2010 spending level and $100 billon below what the president had requested for fiscal 2011.

Those cuts include $5.2 billion in reductions from 2010 levels at the Agriculture Department and the Food and Drug Administration. Some of the biggest cuts would be in domestic and international feeding programs. But the proposals also would also reduce spending for conservation, rural development and loans to farmers.

International food assistance would fall by 42 percent, or about $800 million, to its lowest levels in a decade, if the cuts are enacted, according to the Alliance for Global Food Security, a coalition of aid organizations. The reduction would eliminate assistance to nearly 18 million people, the group said.

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, which tracks the USDA budget, says that the House GOP is going after some mandatory farm bill spending that’s under the jurisdiction of the Agriculture Committee, not Appropriations, which is responsible for writing annual spending bills.

The cuts would hit among others the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which subsidizes the cost of farm pollution controls and conservation measures; the Conservation Stewardship Program, which rewards farmers for improved environmental practices; the Wetlands Reserve Program; and the Biomass Crop Assistance Program, a new measure that is supposed to subsidize the cost of  providing new, non-food feedstocks such as crop residue for biofuel production.

Get a summary of the proposed cuts here: FY2011CRSpendingTablesbySubcommittee

BBC
February 8, 2011

Schools in the arid north-western region of Kenya near Lake Turkana usually offer pupils from nomadic communities food to encourage them to come to class.

The dwindling number of children at Lokichare Primary School near Lowdar town shows that the food rations, like the landscape, have dried up.

Those pupils in attendance who trooped out to welcome the visiting BBC team chose to sing a song in the local Turkana language about the importance of washing hands before eating.

The irony is that the ongoing drought means the school does not even have water for them to drink, let alone wash their hands.

The Kenya Red Cross estimates more than two million people and 20 million head of livestock are currently in need of emergency food.

Various humanitarian organisations and Kenya’s government have launched appeals for food assistance for the region.

Aid organisations have given food to the government to distribute it to schools like Lokichare primary.

But headmaster Edward Lodoso Somal says since the school year began in January, no food has arrived.

“We think it is because of lack of transport,” he said, standing in the small windowless kitchen full of firewood and old ash in the stone hearths where the food is usually prepared.

Rose Ogola, a UN World Food Programme information officer, confirmed that food has been allocated to schools.

“We are surprised that there is no food in that primary school you are talking about,” she said.

However, Lowdar is a two-day, 700km (430-mile) journey from the capital, Nairobi – the last 300km along poorly maintained dirt roads.

This poses logistical problems and the government has no suitable vehicles to make the food deliveries.

Last year, Mr Somal had 280 pupils, now there are less than 90.

Many of the children have left to accompany their parents hunting for food and pasture in neighbouring Uganda, Sudan and Ethiopia.

Others have run off to nearby trading centres, hoping to receive relief food more easily there.

Droughts are not uncommon in northern Kenya, the last severe one was two years ago.

Mr Somal feels long-term solutions need to be found to help the communities survive.

“Pastoralists should be encouraged to start a habit of selling their healthy animals during the drought period to keep their money in banks and use it later when the conditions improve instead of letting the animals die as they wait for rain,” he said.

In 2009, when the government offered to buy healthy animals from the nomadic communities, they declined as they hoped the rains would come.

They only agreed to sell when their livestock were so thin that many of them died on their way to the national slaughterhouse on the outskirts of Nairobi.

Driving through the Lake Turkana region, there is only sand – and a few acacia bushes that keep the few malnourished goats and camels alive.

Young boys and elderly men beg for food and water along the dusty road in the 40C heat.

Conflict fears

Leah Lokala, 27, lives in a homestead – a collection of several grass hut houses surrounded by the desert – in Kalotum, 15km north of Lowdar town.

Nearby there are three famished-looking goats nibbling on thorny scrubs.

She was the only one of the group we met who speaks Kenya’s lingua franca Swahili, an indication that she has attended school for at least a couple of years.

“The drought has killed all the cattle and we now have only the three goats to take care of and we have to travel more than 15km to water them,” she said.

Several kilometres further on towards Lowdar we found a camel, renowned for being the most resilient of desert animals, that can hardly stand.

When the nomads, like the Pokot and Turkana, see their hardy animals dying of starvation, it spells more than just drought.

It often means deadly raids, usually involving pastoralists from neighbouring countries.

Come the rains, heavily armed nomads steal livestock from each other to stock up on those animals lost during the drought.

The authorities also want to stop the movement of nomadic Kenyan communities to other countries, fearing clashes over the scarce water and pasture. Click here to read more.