07 April 2009
U.S. Adds $80 Million to International School Feeding Program
Obama calls for more money for agricultural research
Washington — The United States is adding $80 million in food commodities to a school feeding program for developing countries that are committed to universal education.
“No child in the world should go to bed hungry, and this additional funding will help remedy the very sad reality that across the globe, every night many do,” Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said April 7 in announcing the added resources for the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program for fiscal year 2009. With the additional resources, the McGovern-Dole program will distribute $175.5 million worth of food commodities in fiscal 2009.
Vilsack said Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Niger and Uganda have been added to the program.
“As a result of this effort, 655,000 poor children will eat a nutritious meal during their school day. By combining nutrition assistance with education, this investment will create opportunity for some of the poorest children in the world,” Vilsack said at the International Food Aid Conference in Kansas City, Missouri.
The previously allocated assistance benefits nearly 4.2 million children in 19 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The McGovern-Dole program is named for George McGovern, a former senator and former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. food agencies, and for former Senate leader Bob Dole. In 2008, McGovern and Dole were awarded the World Food Prize for their work fighting world hunger. (See “McGovern, Dole Honored for Feeding the Hungry.”)
Vilsack’s announcement came after President Obama on April 2 called on Congress to double the amount of funds allocated for fiscal year 2010 to help poor countries develop their agricultural sectors.
The funding boost proposed by Obama would bring U.S. agricultural assistance to more than $1 billion in fiscal 2010 and would help achieve the goals of cutting in half the proportion of people suffering from hunger by decreasing food prices in local markets.
The additional funds, if approved, would be concentrated in the following areas:
• Expanding the development and use of technology in collaboration with U.S. agricultural research universities.
• Boosting access to quality seeds, fertilizers, irrigation equipment and rural credit.
• Linking small producers to markets.
• Organizing farmers into cooperatives, establishing warehouse receipt systems and connecting goods to local and regional markets.
• Building social safety nets in the form of more access to jobs, education and health care.
• Improving national and regional transportation corridors.
• Encouraging private investment in agricultural development.
• Building partnerships between the private and nonprofit sectors.
Obama’s call echoes recent legislation introduced by senators Dick Lugar and Bob Casey to boost agricultural assistance. The senators aim to increase funding in subsequent years, reaching $2.5 billion in fiscal year 2014. The bill also calls for establishing a U.S. coordinator for food security charged with developing a government-wide strategy to fight hunger. The legislation was approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee March 31.
The push for more funding for agricultural research and development has been endorsed by such anti-hunger groups as the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa and InterAction.
Without greater investments in poor countries’ capacities to grow and market the food they need to feed growing populations, “the risk of repeated emergencies is likely to rise and chronic poverty will persist,” Julie Howard, executive director of the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa, told America.gov.
Later in April, Vilsack will attend a meeting of agriculture ministers from the Group of Eight countries — the United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Russia. Joining them at the meeting in Italy will be agriculture leaders from Brazil, China, India, Mexico, South Africa, Egypt and the Czech Republic. The European Union’s commissioner of agriculture and leaders from the World Bank and three agencies of the United Nations — the World Food Programme, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the Food and Agriculture Organization — also will participate.
The full text of a press release on expansion of the McGovern-Dole program and a fact sheet on U.S. food aid programs (PDF, 100 K) are available on USDA’s Web site.
A fact sheet on the proposal to increase agricultural development funds is available on America.gov.
