Food Aid Proposal Could Leave Shortfall for World Disasters

WASHINGTON — A little-noticed provision in the massive farm bill now pending in Congress could create a shortage of relief food for catastrophes such as the cyclone that recently struck in Bangladesh, according to CARE, the Atlanta-based humanitarian group, and other critics. Under language passed by both the House and Senate, as much as half of the U.S. food aid program would be earmarked for nonemergency projects run by private charitable agencies.

The guaranteed funding would go to combat the causes of chronic world hunger that kills many more people than disasters, say advocates, who include a coalition of aid groups led by Catholic Relief Services.

Critics of the plan, however, warn reserving so much of the program for nonemergency aid will shortchange disaster relief.

"It puts the emergency response side of the hunger equation at risk because we've had so many more emergencies in the past several years," said Alina Labrada, a spokeswoman for CARE, which is leading the opposition to the change.

Current law allows the president to redirect the food program dollars for emergencies. In recent years, nearly 75 percent of the $1.2 billion annual budget for the food program has gone for disaster relief.

For Catholic Relief Services, that has meant a steady drain for nonemergency projects, such as teaching nutrition and helping farmers build terraces to protect the topsoil on their hillside fields.

"We have closed down in Kenya and are closing down in Ghana, and we're phasing out in India," said Lisa Kuennen-Asfaw, director of public funding for the group, which has seen federal money for its nonemergency programs drop from nearly $158 million in 2005 to $97 million this year.

In the farm bill now being considered on Capitol Hill, private aid groups would be guaranteed at least $600 million for nonemergency food-related programs in the Senate bill. The House bill sets the earmark at $450 million.

If there is a shortfall for a future disaster, Kuennen-Asfaw argued that Congress would respond with more funding. "Congress always meets and very often exceeds what the administration asks for in emergencies," she said.

Cornell University economist Christopher Barrett, author of a book on foreign aid, countered, "What that means is we're going to have to turn off the tap in the middle of an emergency."

Barrett said the wait for Congress to enact additional funding for emergencies would slow down relief shipments, which already take nearly five months to reach disaster zones.

If the proposed legislation had been in place this year, the shortfall in emergency aid would have been $300 million — about the total spent in U.S. food relief to Sudan's Darfur region, he said.

Barrett and CARE officials raised a more fundamental concern about using the U.S. food program to finance nonemergency programs abroad. Traditionally, the aid is not made up of cash but of U.S. surplus farm commodities that have been purchased by the federal government.

The food is either distributed to people abroad or, in some cases, sold in overseas markets by private agencies to finance their nonemergency programs.

Because this so-called "monetization" of U.S. food aid commodities has sometimes disrupted local markets, CARE has begun phasing out of that method of financing, which now brings in about $45 million a year.

Kuennen-Asfaw of Catholic Relief Services said her group also tries to limit the practice of selling U.S. commodities abroad to finance its operations.

"Our preference would be not to have to sell any," she said. But she disputed the critics' concerns that proposed changes in the food program would lead to more sales of food aid.

"We don't agree that it's inevitable," she said.

The farm bill, a reauthorization to replace one passed in 2002, has been ensnared in partisan disputes on Capitol Hill. It is expected to be completed early next year, at the soonest.