A refrain among U.S. farmers and processors is that bountiful America helps feed a hungry world with a population forecast to increase by one-third, to 9.7 billion people, by mid-century. The actuality is that U.S. farm exports “go to countries that can afford to pay for them,” and less than 1 percent go to the world’s hungriest nations, says the Environmental Working Group.
“To claim that U.S. farmers and agribusinesses must go all-out to feed the world — regardless of the consequences to human health and the environment — amounts to wrapping a business opportunity in the cloak of moral necessity,” said EWG, which favors larger U.S. spending on stewardship and is critical of crop subsidies.
One of the agricultural powers of the world, the United States is the largest farm exporter as well as the largest food-aid donor. Exports account for 20 percent of U.S. farm income. During the fiscal year that opened Oct. 1, U.S. farm exports are forecast for $133 billion, up 5 percent from the sales year that just ended.
For a report, “Feeding the World,” EWG analyzed the leading U.S. farm exports and the major import markets for the past 10 years. The vast bulk of sales were to relatively affluent countries where hunger was not a problem. Meat, dairy products and animal feed — “products that help people in wealthier countries eat more meat” — accounted for half of U.S. sales to the 20 largest importers. In 2015, the 20 largest markets, a list comprised of 19 countries plus the EU, bought 86 percent of all U.S. farm exports.
By contrast, U.S. ag exports and food-aid donations provided 2.3 percent of the food supply in the world’s 19 most undernourished countries in 2013, roughly half in sales and half in aid, said EWG.
“Increasing food supplies to undernourished countries would help reduce hunger, but what’s needed most is development aid,” said EWG. Better roads and improved markets would result in more access to food. Better schools, training in health and nutrition, and higher incomes for women and the very poor would reduce hunger. All are expensive, complicated and difficult to implement, said EWG, “but they are absolutely necessary for reducing undernourishment.”
On its concluding page, the EWG report says “there’s nothing wrong” with exports that satisfy demand for more diverse diets among countries with rising incomes. For hungry countries, the U.S. role should be “helping them do a better job of feeding themselves and ensuring that their farmers make a good living.”