"That is going to be a pretty big hit for the people who can afford it the least," he said. food aid would drop from 2.6 million tons last year to about 2.2 million this year. Several are concerned that the cuts come at a time when the Senate is considering a farm bill that would make it much harder for USAID to tap into non-emergency food in the event of a catastrophic event such as the 2004 Asian tsunami.įrank Orzechowski, an adviser for Catholic Relief Services, said his organization has calculated that U.S. "At this point, this is the administration's request," Borns said yesterday.Īid groups said they would press USAID and the Bush administration to pursue more funds from Congress to cover the shortfall. As a result, officials said, the program cuts are necessary. companies that serve up Wonder bread or Big Macs, meaning they pay the same high market rates. USAID purchases grains in the same domestic commodities market as the U.S. USAID officials said the administration, facing a tight budget year, was not planning to request funds to cover the projected $200 million shortfall from the price increases. The Bush administration's 2008 USAID budget request calls for $1.2 billion in food aid with a supplemental $350 million to cover assistance in Darfur and critical situations in southern Africa, Kenya and other hot spots. In 2007, USAID gave about 2.5 million tons of food, accounting for more than 50 percent of the emergency aid in a number of nations, including Ethiopia. Although the United States has proportionally provided less of the world's food aid in recent years, it still provides about half the global total in efforts to relieve hunger among more than 800 million people. Emergency aid is earmarked only for countries in desperate need as a result of natural disasters, civil strife or other humanitarian crises. Groups that work with USAID, several of which have been informed of the shortfall over the past two weeks, are alarmed. We will have to cut the amount of people being served or the amount of food being served if we do not get more funds." "This is really the first emergency we've faced without a drought, war, natural disaster. "Look at what's happened to wheat prices alone - they shot up 25 percent in one day last week," said Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Program. food aid for 40 percent of its distribution. The cuts will likely have a direct impact on major USAID partners, including aid groups and the United Nations World Food Program, the largest international provider, which counts on U.S. Poor countries in those regions are struggling to cope with record food price surges, which have made it difficult for aid groups to sustain their operations in some countries. The reductions, international relief agencies say, will seriously complicate already strained efforts to combat global hunger, particularly in Africa, Central Asia and Latin America. "Then we're going to have to prioritize." "We're in the process now of going country by country and analyzing the commodity price increase on each country," said Jeff Borns, director of USAID's Food for Peace, the organization's food aid arm. Officials said they were reviewing all of the agency's emergency programs - which target almost 40 countries and zones including Ethiopia, Iraq, Somalia, Honduras and Sudan's Darfur region - to decide how and where the cuts will be made.
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