A mixture of U.S. idealism and Farm Belt pragmatism, the U.S. program that donates American-grown food for hunger relief and food security projects overseas would be eliminated by the Trump administration. Its proposed budget for fiscal 2018 would terminate Food for Peace Title II operations.
The budget also would shutter the McGovern-Dole food program for schoolchildren overseas and two USDA market-development programs, the Market Access Program and the Foreign Market Development Program.
Food for Peace Title II is the oldest and largest of the programs with an appropriation of $1.6 billion this year. It dates from the Cold War era and served two purposes – building goodwill overseas and providing an outlook for U.S. food surpluses. The White House said the International Disaster Assistance program of the State Department was better suited for the job and more flexible in responding to needs around the world. “IDA has been shown to allow more appropriate and, on average, more cost-effective assistance than Title II food,” said a budget document.
“For FY 2018, the U.S. government will urge other donors, including non-traditional donors, to increase funding for humanitarian assistance and lessen the burden on the United States to respond,” said the State Department. Support for IDA was proposed for $2.5 billion, down by $900 million from the current year. The United States traditionally is the largest food aid donor in the world.
The disaster account “will be used to fund grants for interventions such as the local and regional procurement of agricultural commodities, procurement of U.S. commodities, cash transfers, food vouchers and complementary activities that support the relief, recovery and resilience of populations affected by food crises,” said the State Department.
All four programs marked for termination are funded or run by USDA. The McGovern-Dole program provides one meal a day to school children in developing nations. It received $202 million for this year.
The trade group U.S. Wheat Associates, which encourages wheat exports, said elimination of the two market development programs “are the wrong proposals at the wrong time for the wheat farmers that we represent.” With commodity prices in a trough since 2013, growers need a hand in finding a market for their crops, said the group.