WASHINGTON -- The House Foreign Affairs Committee approved a bill Thursday that makes permanent an international food-aid program with Arkansas ties.
The Global Food Security Act of 2014 is among a handful of bills with a chance of passing in the weeks known as the lame-duck session before the end of the calendar year, supporters said. The House and Senate are tentatively scheduled to be finished Dec. 11.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously approved HR5656 with little discussion. It next goes to the full House.
The legislation authorizes up to $1 billion for USAID's Feed the Future program each year until 2020 and makes the program permanent. The program, which was created under President George W. Bush and continued by President Barack Obama, teaches farmers in developing nations new or better agricultural techniques, instead of shipping American farm goods overseas.
U.S. Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., is a co-sponsor of the Senate version SB2909.
Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., said the food-aid bill lays out a "road map for future work."
"In an effort to break the current cycle of dependence on U.S. international food aid, USAID has begun investing in programs that develop agricultural practices in key countries, particularly this applies to Africa," Royce said.
USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah said support from Democrats and Republicans in both chambers helps the legislation's chances.
"It is unique in our recent political history to have legislation co-sponsored by Republicans and Democrats, supported by leadership, put forth simultaneously in the House and Senate," Shah said.
In previous years some groups have questioned whether Feed the Future will result in lasting changes and if it is the right way to help farmers, but no vocal opposition has risen yet this year.
Feeding the world has always been a part of American foreign policy, Shah said. The Feed the Future program is special because it isn't just a handout, he said.
"There's now a unique, bipartisan consensus that instead of just giving away American food, we should also help farmers stand on their own two feet so that they can someday be trading partners as opposed to recipients of assistance."
The legislation specifically requires the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, commonly known as USAID, to coordinate and implement the Feed the Future program in an effort to fight world hunger. The legislation also requires the administrator to submit an annual report to Congress on how the program is working.
Boozman said he likes that the USAID administrator will have to report on how the program is operating.
"Ultimately it's going to save us money in the sense of making sure that the aid that we're currently giving is done in the right way," Boozman said. "This is a program that instead of just giving food aid, really concentrates of teaching farmers how to farm, how to make it such that they can make a living wage, so that they can support their families and then also produce more crops."
Currently in place in 19 countries in Africa, South America and Asia, Feed the Future helped feed 12.5 million malnourished children and worked with nearly 7 million farmers in 2013, according to a progress report released in May.
Along with federal funds, the program received $160 million from private businesses that year.
In 2013, Wal-Mart and USAID signed a memorandum of understanding agreeing to work together on the program.
Feed the Future was started in part as a response to food riots in some poor countries in 2007 and 2008 brought on by a spike in food prices.
Boozman pointed to riots starting in 2010 that shifted control of several Middle Eastern countries.
"Much of the uprising there was just people that were unemployed and hungry and if you have societies where there's lots of hunger and tremendous unemployment then there's lots of opportunity for civil unrest and that affects all of us," he said.
A Section on 11/21/2014