Food aid: a critical program, ripe for reform

US food aid has saved hundreds of millions of people from malnutrition and starvation, and it costs less than .05 percent of the federal budget each year. As more frequent natural disasters and humanitarian crises leave millions of families struggling to survive, our nearly sixty-year-old food aid program is more critical than ever.

Our current food aid program requires the purchase and shipment of US-sourced food to locations around the world and is both outdated and inefficient. Food aid shipped from the United States takes four to six months to reach its final destination. What’s worse, Oftentimes, food aid is monetized – it’s purchased from American farmers and then sold abroad in places where food could be purchased locally, damaging local economies.

Right now, fifty-three cents out of every dollar we spend on basic grains for food aid ends up in the pockets of middlemen as a result of red tape and regulations. These regulations protect special interests, at the expense of hungry people, and waste up to $471 million in US tax dollars each year.

US food aid is ripe for reform and right now we have a chance to change it.

Key reforms have been proposed to the way food aid works, including changes to end monetization and to address other inefficiencies that plague the current system. The proposed reforms can help get food aid to hungry people faster, cheaper, and more efficiently without sacrificing the important benefits US aid provides to people in need – we can save millions more lives, without spending a dime. It’s a no-brainer.

Tell Congress: Support food aid reforms. Lives depend on it.

Tweet at congress

A no-brainer: we can get food to more hungry people faster, cheaper, more efficiently. Support #foodaid reform! http://bit.ly/YOmJQ9

And join us in thanking the Members of Congress who are working hard to reform the way food aid works:

A big thank you to @GrahamBlog @JohnBoozman @RepEdRoyce @RepEliotEngel @NitaLowey for leading the way on #foodaid reform!

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Think the cost of your groceries is on the rise? Now think about the tax money you spend on food aid to developing countries. If we reform food aid, we can get more food to the people who need it, more quickly, and at the same cost.