12/27/06 A book on food aid

Farm and Ranch December 27, 2006 In a book entitled "Food Aid After Fifty Years -Recasting its Role" Cornell University International Professor of Economics and Management Chris Barrett writes that U.S. food aid programs have not changed with farm programs and that's a problem. In the past large government stockpiles of commodities like wheat were used for aid. Now bids are bids are requested from the commercial sector. Barrett says large agribusinesses offer to supply the needed commodities and shipping lines bid to carry those goods overseas. Barrett: "And the result of that is supposed to humanitarian assistance. But the problem is when you longer hold the grain in a stockpile someplace and ship it away immediately when you get a need but instead you go through an elaborate procurement process. The delays become quite great. And as a result we are seeing the average time from the request for food aid to port delivery is five months now for emergency shipments. That is just too long to wait." And Barrett says 40-60 percent of the cost to pay for food aid response does not buy food. He and co-author Daniel Maxwell think the whole process can be improved. Barrett begins by trying to destroy what he calls a myth, that food aid helps U.S. farmers. Barrett: "You think about this in basic terms. The value of the commodities purchased by U.S. food aid programs is about a half a billion dollars in an almost one trillion dollar food economy in the United States. That is a drop in the ocean." There are those who benefit though. Tomorrow more on that and what Barrett would change. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.