Draft farm bill includes 'promising' fixes to U.S. food aid system

Apr 26 2012

In this post in the Center for Global Development's (CDG) "Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance Blog," Connie Veillette, director of CGD's rethinking U.S. foreign assistance initiative, comments on a draft farm bill released by Congress last week, which she writes "includes some promising fixes to the notoriously inefficient U.S. food aid system." She continues, "Kudos are definitely in order for a draft bill that advances ideas around improving food aid effectiveness," including "the reauthorization of local and regional purchase (LRP) to buy food closer to emergencies." Veillette writes, "I would prefer the nature of the food emergency to determine whether U.S. commodities or LRP is used rather than some formula that makes more sense for Washington politics than for global hunger," and concludes, "I commend the [Senate Agriculture] Committee for taking a serious look at improving food aid efficiencies and hope that this marks the start of a productive process of policy reform" (4/24).