know good afternoon and welcome to our hearing on rising food prices and their impact on family budgets and the federal budget as well i want to thank our colleague congressman jim mcgovern for opposing this airing for all his efforts to make sure that this committee and for that matter of this congress are aware of the challenge of hunger in a land of plenty the united states and other countries around the world witnessing the biggest spike in food prices in eighteen years in two years words world food of risen more than sixty percent increases a due to a combination of factors elevated demand for incomes of food that come with rising incomes and developing world adverse weather and middle income families were already stressed by years of underfunding deteriorating economic conditions may also require congress to consider a second economic stimulus and their comments are suggesting that increasing food  would be an effective way to stimulate the economy as well as help help people who desperately need it internationally rising food costs adding even worse acts in their home according to the world bank and to the united nations more than one hundred million people are now being pushed into poverty for this reason alone many experts say that making these needs will require emergency funding in the short term and long term agricultural development we have a distinguished panel of witnesses day and i'd like to welcome each one of them first of all jokes that sharon is stuck in traffic to be a part of witness but she's on the way and she's telephoned dad so we'll start without her dr jared bernstein is the director of the living standard program at center they do work good work but people really need it just across the border particular in the case of feeding the hungry were glad to have you here again thank you for coming and that one special person is coming to be in the audience today as a major for your idea to put this important hearing together i think all of us are concerned about the problem of rising food prices the sharp increases in basic staples like wheat corn and rice are causing significant pain both here and abroad especially in third world nations but unfortunately large price increases are not limited to agricultural commodities and food over the past year we've we've also seen oil prices double and gasoline prices surge well past four dollars a gallon a problem also extends beyond fuels to other basic inputs like metals and chemicals in fact when we look around we see that rising food prices are simply just one manifestation of a broader more serious inflation problem in our economy so therefore i think it's important that we take a step back from any one issue like food or energy and look at the root causes of the general inflation problem and clearly one key factor behind rising prices has been the recent actions of the federal reserve now i'll be the first to admit that the fed is in a real bind the economy is just faced serious challenges stemming largely from the housing downturn and the associated turmoil in the financial credit markets and the fed has slashed interest rates in order to soften the blow but at the same time these aggressive actions by our federal reserve has stoked fraud based inflationary pressures the warning bells are starting to become much much louder the consumer price index just hit a seventeen year high of five point zero percent sharply lower interest rates have undermined the value of the dollar so in the price of  denominated commodities like oil much higher honestly i've been hearing more stories about businesses passing along their higher input cost to consumers in the form of much higher retail prices consumers are certainly bracing for more pain surveys show that they're near term inflation expectations are at their highest level in over twenty five years my fear is once this inflationary cycle is allowed to settle into our economy it's going to be extremely difficult to wring this out and it will damage our future growth prospects and since the fed controls monetary policy it is the only institution that can guarantee long run price stability and prevent this vicious cycle from occurring or certainly challenging times for policymakers whether they be monetary or  policy makers and we all have a stake in good policy and achieving good policy means we look not only at the back of the inflation problem which is what we're largely doing here today but its root cause and then make the necessary change issue i would say that it's not just a budgetary issue it's a moral issue and even before the recent spike in food prices we have had a food insecurity and hunger problem in the united states and around the world this is not a new problem it is just been exacerbated by the by the spike in food prices and and we need to understand that there's a cost to  inaction there's a cost to doing nothing hunger cost a lot of money so part of what i hope will happen is that there is a consensus in this congress that we need to do more domestically and around the world and we need to understand that there is a short term challenge that we have that people are in facing difficult times right now and then there is a long term challenge about how we deal with global hunger issues and how we deal with the domestic issues of food insecurity and hunger here in the united states so this is a timely hearing it is an important hearing i believe that hunger is a political condition i think that if we have the political will this is something that we can conquer and solve and i hope that that's what happens and mr chairman i would like to ask unanimous consent that we include in the record for this hearing written statement submitted by america's second harvest and the international dairy foods association and thank you very critical issue of rising food prices and the resulting budget constraints facing families both here and abroad my testimony today will focus on one aspect the rise in food prices the challenge this poses to low income families in this country overall inflation is as mentioned rising more quickly now than in recent years up five percent over the past year driven largely by food and energy costs food purchased for home consumption is rising even more quickly up six point one percent a year ago these inflation rates were two point seven for overall prices and four point six for food at home with these price accelerations in mind my testimony makes these few points first when considering the economic squeeze that food price increases are having on the low and middle income families we need to recognize their economic context in part due to the weak and highly unequal recovery of the two thousand poverty is actually higher now than it was in two thousand and median family income adjusted for inflation is lower second current labor market conditions are leading to broad based losses in real earning measured on a year over year basis bureau of labor statistics data show that real earnings are down every month since last october third higher food prices create a disproportionate burden on low income families because these families spend more of their family budget on food fourth there's evidence that the poor pay higher food prices and that they face faster food price inflation over the past year while the average consumer price index for food at home was up six point one percent the u s d a s low cost food budget for a family of four with two children rose nine point six percent the combination of these factors giving rise to increases in the food stamp rolls which in april hit their second highest level on record twenty eight point one million a one point eight million increase over last april even with this increase the food and research center points out that one out of three eligible persons fails to access the food stamp rolls taking these facts and trends into account i recommend that congress consider investing increased resources in the food stamp program a step that was proposed though not taken in the first stimulus package passed earlier this year including a food stamp expansion in a second stimulus with a feel two purposes first it would help to alleviate some of the budget constraints i documented in my testimony and second it would act as an effective stimulus as an increase of food stamp grants has been found to create the biggest bang for the buck in terms of its economic multiplier effect the rest of my time to briefly elaborate these points when it comes to food the budget constraints facing low income families can be summarized as such families spend a larger share of their budgets on food while prices overall have accelerated sharply over the past year the prices of food a rising faster than average prices and the prices of the food budget of lowest income families are rising faster still and these inflation results along with the ongoing weakness in the job market are leading to persistent losses which in turn further constrained family budgets i had a i have a set of figures in my testimony i see that they're up there on the wall i can put my glasses on i can probably see them myself  e first figure there shows the rate of price growth for food at home and all items in the c p i the overall average c p i in the last three and a half years the patterns been clear food prices have jumped significantly ahead of overall prices the next figure shows the variation of the average budget share for all food and for food at home the lowest income families spend ten and a half percent of their expenditures on groceries compared to five and a half percent for families in the top fifth the next figure plots the prices of of two low cost food budget those two lines and at the top that are right on top of each other the two low cost food budget against the overall c p i over this period between two thousand and two thousand and eight the low income budgets are up thirty six percent compared to twenty seven percent for the c p i at home food at home the next slide reveals the consistent negative trends in real hourly and weekly earnings as i have discussed note that weekly earnings which is the second bar in each one of those months are falling more quickly than hourly and that's due to the low wage workers to come out of the prices over the past five years if you take the wages of low wage workers in two thousand and three in two thousand and eight and you examine just how much gas milk apples flour those commodities the staples that the wage can buy you see the signet decline in gallons of milk of course gallons of gas the hourly wage of low wage workers used to buy a lot more flour rice bread than it currently does typically various programs that have been considered in the context of fiscal stimulus among those programs food stamp benefits as i noted create the largest bang for the buck according to study by moody's economy dot com for every extra dollar spent on the program real g d p grows by a dollar seventy three of the thirteen tax cuts or spending increases considered food stamps had the largest multiplier effect of all the thirteen different stimulus components considered in the study that typically implementation of a food stamp expansion is discussed in terms of ratcheting up the benefits of food stamp recipients as opposed to expanding eligibility guidelines or covering more persons but given the point regarding missing eligibles from the program congress might consider some combination of the two approaches both raising the benefit level and devoting some resources to boosting state's administrative an outreach capacity with the goal of identifying and signing up more eligible today before i began i want to acknowledge the committee's role and leadership in the cause of fighting hunger and malnutrition at home and around the world i thank committee members that have been longstanding leaders in the fight against hunger i see  another really champion this cause and there's no time that it's needed more than today all of your work is one reason w p can provide life saving food in the system ninety million people this year eighty percent of whom are women and children that includes three million people in daraa four alone who depend on w s p for their daily sustenance your role however has never been more important than today as we need a bold new approach to food assistance in the face of the global food crisis and it is important that members of this committee hear what i hear from all over the world in refugee camps villages hiv aids clinics schools orphanages that i visit thank you america the american people provide food for more than half of the hungry in the world to receive food assistance this is a noble legacy carried on since the mar plan and supported by congress and every president from eisenhower to canada to today who launched food for peace canada and eyes today w s p and the world's hungry face the biggest challenge in a generation with the world food crisis mr chairman two weeks ago the u s department of agriculture reported that some one hundred thirty million additional people have joined the ranks of the hungry due to the global food crisis this is a silent tsunami targeting the most vulnerable it knows no borders without unified global action the world's bottom billion could become the world to bottom two billion virtually overnight as their purchasing power is cut in half from soaring food and fuel prices of course we are all consumers want to comes to food food is so basic to human survival that it's denial is a denial of life itself there are only seven males between civilization and an hour on the seventh meal lost all begins to fall apart as people are reduced to fending for their family survival ensuring access to adequate affordable food and nutrition is certainly one of the most fundamental roles of government and indeed of civilization itself today the global food supply  groaning under the strain of skyrocketing demand crop losses due to drought and severe weather and increasing demand on the use of food for energy and other supplies this is no doubt presents a huge opportunity for many farmers and i am a long term optimist on this issue but this is hitting poor consumers hard last june are warned we were facing a perfect storm for the world's most vulnerable today i believe we are in the eye of that storm news reports and images from the deadly riots in haiti triggering the collapse of the government and elsewhere around the globe are stark reminder that food insecurity threatens not only the hungry but peace and stability itself much of the global reaction panic buying hoarding speculation price controls and export restrictions are exacerbating the problem in fact thirty countries hav posed new food export restrictions making it difficult to access vital supplies since mid two thousand and seven we have seen the most aggressive pattern ever of global price increases for basic food commodities in the past five years from two thousand and two to two thousand and seven we faced a fifty percent increase in the cost of caring food for our system o programs then in only nine short months between june of two thousand and seven and february of two thousand and eight we saw another fifty percent increase and these increases are not a thing of the past on march third it was buying rice in asia at four hundred thirty dollars a metric ton five weeks later it was seven hundred eighty dollars a metric ton two weeks after that one thousand dollars a metric ton as you all know well this is pinching consumers hard even here in america as we've just heard but imagine the more than one billion people in the world living on less than a dollar a day already spending most of their income on food up to eighty percent trying to keep up imagine poor import dependent nations such as haiti liberia or afghanistan not even the best governance on earth can overcome such stock and cash reserves and these nations are being drawn down to all time lows and just when the world needed most we were able to reach fewer people than ever let me illustrate the impact that soaring prices have had  pay reaches up to twenty million children a year with life saving meals at school thanks in large measure to the wonderful mcgovern doll school feeding program thousands receive a couple like this which belong to a rwanda filled with nutritious porridge for those of us visit at our school feeding programs and you know that for many of the children this is their most precious possession that is as it is the only cup of food they can rely on each day but by january of this past year simply due to soaring food prices we had forty percent less food in this cup that nutritional chasm will have long term consequences for those children as we know and now research demonstrates that the nutritional blow to children under two years old forced to survive on mud cakes in haiti or mold it will devastate them for a lifetime  work closely with the secretary general of the united nations task force on the food crisis and with the world bank to offer a coherent global approach to help those nations hit hardest mr chairman together these challenges have culminated in a global crisis that requires u s leadership as you know better than anyone that leadership begin to hear in these committees and in this committee as you set the priorities for all the work the u s government i'm asking you and this committee to pause and understand that i am not here to ask for a one time handout at this difficult moment i'm asking the committee to consider making global food assistance a higher priority so that we might be able to get ahead of the hunger curve the cost of feeding the hungry has doubled in the past year due to the soaring prices w orkload has doubled the world bank predicts these high prices will be with us until twenty twelve if so the humanitarian crisis will continue i recognize this is no small request i have made this request throughout the world not only to the european parliament but to saudi arabia and others who could help at this time just briefly to give some background the world food program as you know was created by you and the nations of the world as the world hunger urgent hunger institution when all else fails you turn to us to prevent life threatening food and nutrition vulnerability today we manage a global lifeline that can reach any quarter of the world  forty eight hours as we did during the war war in lebanon and after the cyclons in bangladesh and may in mar deploy thousands of planes ships helicopters barges and when needed donkeys camels our motto is nothing gets between w and a hungry child we are one hundred percent voluntarily funded receiving no core assessed funds from any source in this way we are unique in the u n system we are as efficient as we are active using only seven percent of each dollar you give us on overhead and deploying state of the art monitoring ensuring food delivery provides concrete help on the ground and often dangerous and difficult conditions in a way that few other institutions in the world can do and it is often dangerous work so far this year and are for a load eighty three of our trucks have been hijacked and forty one of our drivers are still missing in action globally this year thirteen people have lost their lives in service to w s p ships carrying our food are attacked by pirates off the coast of somalia and unless we have naval protection from nations we cannot get that lifesaving food into somalia we call on all nations to provide these escorts which have proven an essential and effective deterrent this is the daily reality we are dealing with but there is no alternative we must provide humanitarian food assistance to those who are in need this is one of the oldest most basic humanitarian instincts the world has if someone doesn't have enough food we reach out and help those in need we have seen that hunger can be defeated and local food security can be restored and achieve the world knows how to do this but we are facing perhaps our biggest challenge yet the world in america has been generous and helping us to address these challenges during the past three months we've gone through an unprecedented resource mobilization effort to cover the soaring cost of food and to ensure that cups like this remain full since march we have received one billion in new contributions including a historic five hundred million donation from the kingdom of saudi arabia that money is being used to purchase and distribute food in sixty nations on june thirtieth president bush signed a supplemental appropriation bill sent to him from congress thank you that included a great lead needed eight hundred fifty million to address new emergency needs by mid july working with our strong partners at the department of agriculture usa id and food for peace that assistance was already streaming out the door to meet urgent needs in seventeen countries much of it headed to the people of dar for somalia ethiopia afghanistan and zimbabwe by the middle of august a second tranche will be on the way mr chairman as much as we have done we must do more your committee's critical here because we're at a juncture where we can no longer handle urgent food needs on an ad hoc basis rather we must understand that as we cope with these high food prices  we pose a greater threat of civil unrest of a threat to fragile democracies around the world getting ahead of this hunger curve will require your help we have made much progress in the past four decades actually bringing the overall percentage of the world's hungry down to seventeen percent from thirty seven percent in the one nine hundred sixty s but make no mistake unless we want to see these important gains reversed we can no longer continue to do business as usual so i would like to two specific requests we need the u s to continue as the global leader in the fight against hunger the world looks to the u s to provide this leadership specifically we need our food aid budgets to be bolstered and we need to ensure that we have the flexibility to deliver that food quickly and second in that flexibility we need to be able to the markets are so dangerously tight now we need as we did in the supplemental to provide some cash to be able for us to doubled the cost and multiplied the urgent needs of the hungry not only for the world food program but for all of those working to stem the tide from care to world vision to oxfam to catholic relief services bread for the world and others we will all do the job humbly and effectively but we cannot do it without you this is a national security issue fragile new democracies such as liberia are being rocked to their core that's food riots have hit forty nations i guarantee you the investment now avoids much bigger costs later i invite this committee to come visit the field to witness the results of your generosity come here for yourself from leaders such as president before in guyana or surly johnson in liberia the transformative power of american food assistance mr chairman when i travel the world i take this red cup with me and i am amazed at the number of people who are moved to tears because they personally experienced a cup of food from america some point in their life i've met ministers in europe and japan and africa in fact the head of the development committee and in the european parliament when i held this up he was moved to tears and he said i grew up on a couple food from america we knew at that time that that is what peace and security was about and in fact america made the deliberate decision that we had to provide food security before we could introduce democracy as a forceful idea and a powerful idea in japan and in europe mr chairman i want to thank you and i want this committee to know that we understand that in a democracy no one person to decree how a nation's treasurers spent but we do know that the role of this committee is vital and none of the assistance and help that we are able to provide would not happen without the active engagement of this committee would be honored to welcome you to the field to see the results of that work and i thank you so much for your attention to this matter n chairman spratt members of the budget committee i want to thank you for this opportunity today the south carolina appleseed legal justice center about the rising food costs impact the low income community and the programs that serve them also want to thank you for taking the time to have this hearing to look at this very important issue the rising cost of food is adversely impacting all american low income households are suffering the brunt of this  these escalating food costs with overextended budget for these households the easiest personalized item to cut is often what is spent at the grocery store not just the quality of food but limiting the quantity of overall purchases in south carolina are low income community has been dramatically impacted by the significant increase in food costs south carolina has the third highest rate of food insecurity and the second highest rate  very low food security in the entire nation over six hundred thirty thousand south carolinians experience hunger at least once a year a family living at or below poverty will be forced to spend a large portion of its income on food and rarely has money in the household that they can access when the rapid increase in cost occurs in the last year the price of food has increased over five percent the cost of a bare bones grocery bill for a family of four that meets the food stamp thrifty food plan saw an eight point five percent increase that's a forty six dollars monthly increase now there's a perception that the cost of living in south carolina is low but i can tell you for low income families in our state they are struggling to my testimony i have attached to monthly family expenditure budget the first is a modest budget for a single parent supporting two children the second is for a two parent family with one child almost all of the families who live at or below two hundred percent of our poverty level outspent their income just for basic needs in our state what this demonstrates is that the majority of low income households despite working full time are unable to absorb even a forty six dollar increase in food costs each month unfortunately one way low income family families manage to survive temporarily is by cumulating debt low income consumers are making desperate choices they're living on credit cards payday and auto title loans that are sending them into the down more debt spiral one elderly gentleman i recently helped to use payday loans to as he told me make ends meet by the time he had finally contacted me he was facing eviction his utilities were being terminated and he had no food no food in the house because this temporary stop gap measure had overtaken all of his income purchasing food seemed to be the easiest item on his budget to eliminate and i should tell you  ultimately ended up in the hospital with renal failure because this man was a diabetic many working families are now turning to food pantries for the first time the pantry in my hometown of columbia south carolina is now open one evening a mo accommodate working families most of these families coming into the food pantry report their wages are not stretching as far do to rising costs and of the household utilizing the food pantry approximately fifty percent were receiving food stamps and many of these families come in desperate and destitute apologizing for needing the food pantry and what i have to explain to them when i meet with them is you don't have to apologize you're doing the right thing by coming and taking care of your children food stamps and with our critical programs to combat hunger approximately one in eight south carolinians receive food stamps the food stamp program makes an enormous ability an enormous difference in the ability to purchase food for working poor unemployed seniors citizens of the disabled for those eligible but current benefit amounts do not meet their purchasing need and they have eroded even further over the last year this needs to be corrected in our upcoming budget the food stamp benefit level needs to be fully indexed to permit the allotment to keep up with food inflation what was always a modest benefit package has eroded over the past the among their thrifty food plan which serves as a national standard for nutritious diet at a minimal cost is used as the basis for food stamp allotment and as i said earlier has seen an eight point five percent spike well there will be adjustments to the benefit allotment in october it simply is not enough when made the adjustment will already be four months out of date in addition it will not change over the next twelve months despite the predicted rise in food costs congress can address this problem for the coming fiscal year by anticipating the food price inflation that will occur and acting to offset some of it so assistance does not again fall short congress should consider properly reflecting the price in food costs that will take place over the next year by increasing the food stamp benefit for fiscal year two thousand when the benefit increases that are scheduled to take place in october in two thousand and eight this will ensure that the lag in food data prices is taken into account and households will reap provided with sufficient resources despite the rising costs over the coming year i also urge you to ensure that the women infants and children with program is adequately funded in the next year the supplemental foods provided by wic program are designed to meet participants enhanced dietary needs for specific nutrients during brief but critical periods of physiological development over fifty percent of the women and children arm which are members of families where at least one or both parents work outside of the home the average south carolina wicklow for fiscal year two thousand eight it's almost one hundred twenty five thousand participants the south carolina with program served over fifty percent of the infants born in our state this increas participation does not come without financial strain to the program it can mean substantial delays which are already being reported before an applicant became be seen the increase in food costs over the past year of calls food packages provided under which to become extremely expensive while the agency has not done so yet it may be forced to implement a priority system for who will be able to participate in which if the state does not receive increased congress must congress rather than wait for the regular appropriation that might be months later and most certainly mean that eligible women and children would be denied services while the program is waiting for sufficient funding low income families are feeling the impact of increasing food prices and facing terrible choices not paying the light bill or rent using less quality daycare or living in ninety five degree heat with no air conditioning or a fan a single mother with no health insurance may choose to ignore the lump in her breast  or another may be juggling over a dozen payday loans in an effort to make ends meet the rapid rise in food prices which are predicted to continue our road into value of critical programs especially stance in which we must protect all of our citizens who are suffering suffering from this economic downturn by helping them increase and maintain their purchasing power at the grocery store and we must remember that these dollars pumped into our local economy will also help us all in which he said what it what are the root causes for the food price inflation and i think the federal reserve is the main culprit in the food price inflation  gave a very influential speech and he warned that deflation was the real problem that we were facing and at that time he convinced chairman greenspan and the rest of his colleagues at the sa one percent by july of two thousand and three and they left the fed funds rate at that record low level for a full year now accompanying this of course as you know the dollar started dollar was going down more sharply now it's a distant matter of simple economics in arithmetic to conclude that the dollar the dollar price of commodities including  food to book if the dollar is going down you have to pay more to buy a pig than you more dollars than you had to pay before when the dollar was stronger so if we look at the contribution of the weak dollar to the food prices and commodity price increases it's really rather remarkable i've got to table the table want to the money and if you look at that table there is a assumed was in kind of a counterfactual exercise that the exchange rate between the dollar and the euro what if it would have remained the same as it was at the end of two thousand and one instead of going down it remained the same as it was at the end of two thousand and one and then calculate what the contribution of the fall in the exchange rate was to since two thousand and one the end of two thousand and one about fifty nine percent of the price increase in soybeans is strictly due to the fact that the dollar's gone down relative to the euro over that period of time supply and demand factors that have been changing around in those markets that are actually pushing the price up even higher than the price increase that would automatically take  two thousand and one that is caused by the weak dollar is actually greater than one hundred percent and then on the right hand column you'll see there are negative signs and what that means is actually the fundamentals in those markets are the problem is in terms of root causes as congressman ryan referred to them not you wouldn't know that from listening the course of the fed because they'll cover up anything you chairman bernanke up here on the hill the fifteenth of july saying we've looked at all and he said speculators don't have anything to do with it i agree with that by the way speculators are nothing to do with these price increases he said fundamentals its fundamentals fundamentals  i think he's pulled the wool over many people's eyes with that position and the vice chairman of the fed is made statements that have been absolutely identical to this so if you want to reduce or is a commodity and it happens to be a very important input into the production and distribution of food and i know it's a hot button issue here on the hill what about crude oil prices and so on w actually it turns out that there is something the government can do immediately about crude oil prices we call the strategic petroleum reserve and the strategic petroleum reserve is huge its drawdown capacity is greater than the export volume coming out of iraq and kuwait combined the spro is absolutely huge the problem is and both spro and this could be done by a market based solution a very simple market based solution and that is that the oil in this would be sold or gets the cash from selling at one hundred fifty and they also get the premium on the call option so you've generated revenue by doing this now with this huge amount of inventory this is a massive amount of inventory now it's dead it's not doing anything i mean some democrats want to release some of it the republicans of course are against that because the democrats are for it and the solution is let the market one and it would really end up i think you should have you should have the democrats all for because they want to really and you should get the republicans if they come to their senses and wake up they would be for it because they say oh this is a great market based solution we're using our market here so everybody is happy and especially the person the petroleum products are consuming food because those prices are going to go gone up everything is gone up what are we to do about it and some people kind of can make you know can make the make up the difference but there are a lot of people that can as we speak people of falling through the cracks i talk to some people more than military bases and bombs and number of troops i think it also should include things like economic security here but also you know lowering poverty rates lowering hunger around the world  wish the homeland security committee would get on board and be demanding more for investments in these natural hunger programs and food programs because i think it's a way to bring stability to the world when people are hungry and people are in poverty and they are hopeless they are more likely to turn to desperate measures and you know one of the programs that you mentioned which is near and dear to my heart the mcgovern dole school feeding program which i like now has got a great name but because it is feeding hungry children in school settings all around the world kids get fed and they get an education to become literate so getting two things done we have been battling on this program for many many years to get an appropriate funding level we began with three hundred million dollars cut down to fifty million dollars we're now up to one hundred million dollars in a prom bill where you know we don't know where we are hopefully above that my question to you is what is one hundred million dollars by you today one hundred million dollars a year ago would buy you x what is it by you today i mean how much how much of these rising food prices  purchasing power of what we have thought was a fairly decent and generous program let me begin with the domestic diva for us on the issue of well my answer is obviously yes to the question of whether a second stimulus is necessary given where the economy is and where it's expected to be over the next year or so and the urgency of the food needs that we've discussed just to repeat something i had in my testimony the moody's economy dot com evaluated thirteen different stimulus program either spending increases or tax cuts and of those thirteen foreign away food stamps were the most stimulative in terms of dr bernstein we need people are going hungry because they don't have enough resources to be able to purchase their food increasing the food stamp allotment is going to be critical people are coming to the food bank now much sooner in the mom because their food stamps are buying much and so the stressors are on the food banks around the individual households and the one important way that we can address that whole problem for people responsible but make a comment and that is that we've we've gone with the the bush administration we've had a sixty eight percent increase and in government spending compared to the clinton years clinton was thirty two percent so we've had a massive while spending going on in the government and and with the announcement of the kick up in the deficit i read in the new york times the chairman's comments i think the chairman would probably frown on in increasing spending and stimulating something and increasing the deficit so i have i have concerns with spending more money but i understand one thing i want to put it for the record i mean the food stamp benefit hasn't been expanding with these over the last several years and maybe the number of people who are eligible but the actual benefit hasn't expanded so it hasn't been we've been more can't learn school lack of productivity it's not like you know it knowing what these price increases then and and their cause coming from this weak dollar that i mentioned earlier i would react rebate program the last big tax rebate was as president nixon did this and milton friedman i'm certain you're right for her to melt them and no one was very much opposed to this stimulus package and of course is the reasoning on that is the same reasoning when i was opposing the stimulus package that the that just came out of the well that i'm of marching down the reason reason for it is that it's viewed  the permanent or temporary income hypothesis is completely irrelevant and in this area of food stamps what we're talking about are people whose resources are such that they're on able to provide enough food so they're not looking at the stimulus in terms of whether this is a temporary or a permanent shift in their permanent income they're simply having more resources to buy completely elastically demanded goods which is which is food so i don't think that applies there secondly  i don't believe i think that much of your analysis confuses correlation with causation i understand that exchange rates and food prices have been moving in ways that you showed in your in your mean you're wrong i'm just saying that the conventional wisdom on this and i think it's correct doesn't include either exchange rates or federal reserve policy it includes natural phenomena disruptive whether it includes a quick rising demand in that interest rates and dollar movements had had much to do it all with this and and secondly the implications of your thinking on this i thought were misguided in the following way the implication would be that raising interest rates would somehow be part of the solution to the problem we're looking at right now and raising interest rates right now simply wouldn't do anything on the supply side what it would do would be  slow the economy down further to dampen demand and to deepen the current downturn whether it's job losses or wage losses so i don't see how raising interest rates slowing the growth of the economy would  any of the effect that we wanted to in this regard now if you were to dampen economic growth such that people have fewer jobs and lower wages and lower incomes and they could buy less food perhaps the price would come down based on  well as i mentioned we're able to fill this cup forty percent less and as this food crisis deepens we lose more and more of the value of this cup so in order to keep the same amount in this cup we actually need the additional funding so just the erosion of the cost of food is really causing a terrible situation i will say in my job there's nothing more heartbreaking the need to needing to cut off schools from school feeding it becomes the lifeline for these children and this year we had to cut off all the school children in cambodia we had to end our school feeding program in the slums of kenya just because we ran out of money just due to the higher price of those kids well most of them cannot afford to go to school them because they have to go forward for food or find money for their families or go feed themselves and so we're really we have already as we know we lose a child every six seconds in the world the hunger so we obviously are not reaching all of them the ones that we reach are the ones we can identify as the most in need so these are not children that have a backup plan and these are not children whose families have a back up plan i do want to get to your national security issue we know that every study shows that in order to build secure democracies you have to have education and you have to have the basics  this is just the fundamentals we knew this after world war two we knew this during the marshall plan this cup is a magic cup it cost ten cents before the food crisis to fill it it now costs about twenty five cents a day it transforms communities and it is not a permanent charity countries take this over and this year we have had twenty countries graduate from the school feeding programs introduced through the generosity of the u s and others and jordan and morocco now run their own school feeding programs were out of the business we get out of the business because once we can structure them and once country see the power of them i saw a survey of parents who send their kids to radical schools number one reason food number two reason uniforms you go down the list how do countries compete with the radical schools if they can't even provide a basic meal in school and what is so exciting is we are learning how to power pack this cup so it has adequate nutrition at a low cost and we're working with companies in america in europe and elsewhere to figure out how to get smart about what is in that cup once we model those programs they can be handed over to communities and we do so regularly and amazingly in some places we're able to fill this with produce grown by local farmers like in the d r see we're in a war zone so it becomes a win win cycle of stabilizing the societies so i actually am a radical about school feeding george mcgovern said he won't rest until every child on earth at least has a cup of food in school and i asked how much would that cost i was just intrigued at w p under our cost structures for the world to say no child goes to school hungry before the food crisis would have cost one point five billion dollars a year now this isn't an end to human hunger but the world could say no kid goes to school hungry for one point five billion a year after the food crisis about three billion a year but what a powerful safety net that the america has learned even a rich country like america is you cannot afford to have your kids slip through the cracks so even this year i was able to get the first multilateral contribution from brazil who gave us the money to look at best practices and school feeding to teach governments how to do this most cost effectively with the biggest nutritional punch and how to reach the kids most in need so we're very serious about staying the course on this and we need mcgovern president sirleaf johnson of liberia called me the day before the vote on the government dole she said what's happening what's the latest i need this and i mean she was just you know and so the work of the committees and everything is on the mind of the leaders in countries of africa and elsewhere she was following committee action  governed she wanted to know exactly the standing of it to want to know could a lot of your account on kids having food in school is there's just nothing more compelling than this program and i think it's nothing more symbolic of the kind of generosity that america shows to the world thank you and i want to thank you for your leadership  with regard to what the fed has done in recent with regard to from some perspective having a negative influence on the dollar and other words of lesser value dollar what is that impact therefore on the on the price of food has the fed action when they did such things as took action with regard recently to the financial situation crisis if you will in the country but with bear stearns in light where they open up the discount windows for thirty some odd billion dollars level of ability does the that have to continue to take these actions that they have taken which basically a says to extend federal dollars to the various financial crisis that we have in this country isn't there some limitations to the fed's balance sheet in this area my analysis of it is what we potentially would be doing with the balance sheet is not without limit not that not the u s government's balance sheet but the fed's balance sheet is not without limits i look at him and now sitting twenty two and forty billion dollars commodity and that is sugar this house as the historically i guess from both sides of the aisle quite candidly has supported farm bills in the past that affects sugar production and i guess under past law the price of sugar is heavily regulated regulated as to how much can be produced in this country how much sugar can be imported into this country well so i guess that sugar producers have certain availability through that sugar has to go to certain call sugar the ethanol programs in this country so the rest since there isn't any surplus that you can go to various programs or to bring down the cost of to the consumers the numbers i have says that the million dollars a year in addition i would think that in addition to the companies that i represent in my district which are companies that use the sugar and some of them are now saying well we should just go out and open our plants elsewhere in the world because it's cheaper are impacted by it but i also think that my constituents who are lower income level have to be impacted by this as well is that the farm bill that we're trying to pass or do pass that you're in republican or democrat alike are supposed to be out there to help the consumer my analysis of it is just the opposite tell me if i'm wrong that at the end of the day that what we do actually has hurt the consumer if i'm wrong explain to me why i'm wrong thank you to whoever wishes to address the financial question first i guess about increasing interest rates i don't know where he drew that conclusion but also it's very important to realize that if you look at table one in my testimony i do include all a real dollar exchange rate that the price of sugar would have actually gone down in two thousand and one it was seven point three nine at the end of two thousand and one and it would have been six point  classic deal that's taken consumers in the united states for one of the greatest rides in history i mean this is this is an end of story i mean everyone knows i mean this is you know forty pencil to the numbers that you're talking about but it's it's very costly for users of sugar and it's a protectionist program for sugar  to argue about the role of the dollar the way i would do this would have a lot more to do with understanding the role that the dollar plays in the difference between the prices of food that's imported and food that's traded domestically i totally agree with steve that a weaker dollar makes imports more expensive and also makes exports more competitive and actually that's been demonstrably helpful to us it's one of the few areas of our economy that's expanding right now is the export sector based on a weaker dollar now i didn't mean to say at all that you suggested higher interest rates what i what i tried to say is that was implicit  my interpretation is implicit in the sense that if you believe that the fed is or is holding interest rates too low you know you can say that but if you were to believe that the fed in first rates were too low and were leading to the kinds of problems that we're talking about today in the panel then you would conclude that the fed needs to raise interest rates and in fact it's quite clear that a fed interest rate even the pauses they have to raise interest rates stop lowering them has increased the value of the dollar so if you believe that the dollars behind all this and it's absolutely clear that you would logically advocate for higher interest rates strengthen the dollar and reverse the prob you're talking about now there's obviously other moving parts that you might not agree with  that part of your analysis i just don't see how you get away from that you get a strong dollar by having a strong economy you can do all kinds of things to strengthen the dollar if you want to policy to strengthen the dollar one thing you can do just on the policy side is the bush administration and the congress has had an obsession with the chinese they're beating up on the chinese about the currency now that that is a weak dollar policy you want the r and b to appreciate the dollar so the overall thrust in international policy of the bush administration has been this obsession with one  tiny ill considered in my view them and that's the the r m b dollar exchange rate which is this complete nonsense and a waste of time and one reason we're in such hot water right now is that the treasury hasn't even meant thinking about anything except going to china and on beating up on the chinese again so that all of the all of the things with regard to the dollar we don't have to talk about interest rates at all we have to talk about things that make the u weak dollar policy that we've had and we've been following it and of course and i want to wants to admit that that's what the policy is you know they still every once in a while come out with some kind of language and rhetoric about strong dollar it's just and i find myself in the position of the over story that you heard about capitol hill where opponents own different own the same issue were admitted to the members you're your number of three billion dollars to provide presume all the children in the world that don't get enough today how much are we put in there are many many organizations and many faith based groups that do great work so i only know our numbers but we are reaching about twenty million kids a year the u s puts about one hundred million into mcgovern dulls school feeding which reaches about three million of those kids one thing we had thought was predictability of that so that we can promise schools will be with them for three four five years and we've made some progress and i thank you all for that but there's room to be to be made there so the gap is about fifty nine million children and  again you know this would be a sliding scale because it's never a permanent charity so yeah so the gap now is fifty nine million children globally who go to school hungry who do not receive any help in school and it would take an additional three billion dollars to fill that gap is under our cost you know and again we're not talking about potatoes or a dessert we're talking about a humble cup of porridge but it's a life saving cup of porridge we have an ambassador palter god he's the world's fastest man i think you ran the fastest marathon and he grew up on the school feeding he was saying that before that he would walk to school and he could never after that it changes the cup is enough to really sustain life and allow children to concentrate in school that seems to be a pretty simple concept and it's not that expensive when you get a forty trillion dollar global economy is this something humanity can figure interesting and one of the things that interests me about it is that there's never any consideration given that i have ever heard until i ask for it and most of the time don't get it about the connection between the cost of production and how much this the cost of production has no matter what the dollar for it doesn't matter about any of those things that's what they get for completely at the mercy of the market and that's the way they're treated and i and i always kind of years we've also had a cheap food cost in this country of any country in his to the world and it remains that way and i suspect will be for a long time and i think those things need to be in entered into the e response to your comment you know i take your point and i think as an economist the cost of production has to be considered in understanding the price of food and i also understand how critically important these markets are and the economic conditions faced by our natural conditions faced by our farmers are and the importance of their ability to hedge and the importance of their ability to offset years that are particularly unfavorable and so my comment to the representative a minute ago was based on a simple calculation of what subsidies problem i personally have with this and i'm happy to chat with you convenience about it is that the subsidies don't appear to be at all flexible to prices so that when food prices go through the roof and the farmers are  price times quantity is going way up one could imagine subsidies adjusting under those c  he was talking about the input costs the cost of producing food and i wound up by talking about oil prices and oil and oil products are very large input into the production and distribution cost picture for food and and looking and then at the point that i started out with about the dollar you have to realize that boyle is trading crude is trading for let's say roughly  hundred twenty five dollars a barrel sixty dollars of that hundred twenty dollars price is not accounted for simply by the decline in the value of the dollar since two thousand and one well if if if you told a farmer that by having a stable dollar that stayed the same relative to the year of where it was at the end of two thousand and one you would knock sixty one dollars off the price of a barrel o would be jumping for joy so this is the point coming back to this causation thing with the dollar it we're talking about big bucks here with regard to production costs congressman berry was concerned about thank you nominal charge not all dollars we've doubled food aid the federal budget over the last eight years if you go to charge it fifty nine point two percent of food aid by major donors over the  ninety five thousand five comes from this country and if you take a look at this dollar issue we are not stretching our dollar very far and so you're quantifying it in your cup is being knocked down by forty percent for a cup well if you could go to chart number two please this is a little bit different we kind of do our own charge here but i read that dallas had a reserve study which i commend anybody i think it's very interesting study which attributes and tracks the price of the dollar the relative price of the dollar versus commodities this is the price of the dollar which is the blue line versus agriculture commodities the green line in oil crude  prices the red line and you can see a direct causation i would say not a correlation you got a chart number one we are now in negative federal fund raising rate times right now and so to negative territory we are feeding inflation and if you take a look at consumer prices meaning consumer cost of money consumer rates aren't going down with these federal funds rate crisis rates right now i would take back these rate increases i would and i'll be brutally honest about that because i think we need to do more to let the inflation out of this economy i think the federal reserve is courting inflation the federal reserve thinks they can get this back in the bottle before it's too late i'm suspicious of that even the fed reserve only measurement the tips yields the michigan survey all of them are showing that we have inflation headline inflation is screaming it's a seventeen year high and so if you take a look at what the federal reserve has done lately consumer rates car loans auto loans mortgage loans credit card loans those rates aren't going down so the concern this isn't even getting passed on to those consumers at the low income scale that we're so concerned about so let me just make a  question miss sharon sharon did i get that right miss sharon on my phone your testimony very compelling very interesting real food for thought no pun intended and and i think there are many around here that are rethinking this issue rethinking the issue from a foreign policy perspective rethinking the issue from a how do we win the hearts and minds because that is after all what are foreign policy challenges now and when we look at this issue i think a lot of us take a more of a sympathetic view to jim's ideas and his policies but when you look at the root cause of this the dollar decline is a major factor here it's a major factor to low income people in south carolina it's a major factor to people in the third world but then you combine that with what congress is doing and i'm not blaming democrats here republicans are equally to blame for this you get a farm bill which i would argue props up prices for commodities you've got a farm bill that among other things led to doha blowing up yesterday which is supposed to be the third world round now we're denying market access there will countries to get on the lives of self sufficiency and so we don't see a real end in sight here we see the dollar still declining we see inflation on the horizon we see the dollars we're spending in these food programs being stretched more thinly we see no more trade markets opening up for the third world or for our agriculture commodities for that point we see a farm bill that is a protectionist farm bill that's going to prop up prices and so you know let me ask you dr to start with if we were to do what mr bernstein said or asked my question if we were to to take back some of these rate cuts from the federal reserve if the federal reserve to were to tomorrow make a very explicit i think michigan gave a speech on price inflation targeting the other day that may have made a little bit of a difference but if if if chairman bernanke vice chairman cone were to say inflation is the biggest concern we now are explicitly go after inflation it's outside of our comfort zone and we're taking back some of these very focused on getting this thing contained but but again i think we have to talk about some things that may be near and dear to our like you know reducing taxes on capital the fairly complicated picture but one thing a position similar to president fischer of the dallas fed would be the one that i would take so you would have to conclude that i'd be perfectly comfortable taking back some of the rate because i think there'd be a huge rally and the dollar gold prices would it would would really tank and commodity prices would come off very sharply a oil oil would i i'm not trying to deny that point if it costs two bucks to buy a sandwich instead of one box you need to add another buck to the to the tilley point is what we should be talking about here is what is the root cause of this why is this happening so just papering it over and increasing the budget deficit and paying for more of it let's let's let's address the root cause if we do both why it's costing so much more so i'm not denying that the notion the need that our dollars aren't going as far and  few feeding fewer people but as a policymaker i think it's important we address the root cause of this and we break this cycle and so i think it's important for those in the food community who are looking at just expenditures or looking at the of inflation you would see a dramatic improvement in these programs in the ability to fund these programs that theory but it's theory backed up by a lot of data a lot of them and  congressman ron i just wanted to urge that we also look at the food supply issue because what we're finding is no matter how much cash we have we're having a hard time picturing enough food and we're seeing nations having a hard time procuring it according  the world is consuming more than a produces for the last three years by the year twenty fifty the world has to produce twice as much food that should be very good news for america because we are one of the major food producers if not the most major in the world that was my next question tell me about the story about rice and about some of the more protectionist policies in other governments i think india is probably the number one that have been hoarding rice tell me about how that is affecting these programs i think we're down to less than seven percent of the rice of the world actually being traded on markets and actually there's only a small percentage of food that is actually ever traded on global markets which is part of the problem because you just tip that balance just a little bit you have countries go into hoarding or building up supplies or panic buying and it actually creates a supply problem and so you know part of you know if you look at the whole food security structures after world war two they were really designed for a different market a different world a different production system we're now in a world where we've been through a period of time of more abundant food lower cost food we need new food security structures in each country to deal with the challenges that we have coming ahead and we have to look at do we need emergency stocks should we have a global spro for food all of these issues in order to both deal with price mitigation but also supply how do we get the production up we have a huge burgeoning humanitarian crisis in countries like kenya where farmers can't plant because they can't afford the fertilizer or the diesel so we have this kind of compounding crisis but we also have a supply problem there is not right now  food and all the stocks have been drawn down to all time lows so i just urge that we also look at this issue and i think it would serve the united states well to really look at food security to really kind of dust off the whole picture and look at it for the coming years ahead when the world's going to need twice as much food produced and how the united states farmers can not only benefit from that but how to ensure that our food security structures are responsive to th in contradictory policies are working at cross purposes and they almost all have programs like this i mean you mentioned so you're going to have a government the government's going to take care of everyone  security because they've got a rice storage program and in indonesia the indonesian program it's a typical soviet era where the planners can't even estimate even come close to what the supply is going to be in any one year produced in asia or what even the demand is going to be in indonesia so how can you know how much they import because the government has a complete mind boggling mess country by country when you go to it and of course the key thing is as you mention you've only got about six or seven per cent of world rice production that's actually traded in the international market so when somebody like the philippines all of a sudden earlier this year says oh we're our buffer stocks we better get out there and start buying tyro the prices went to the moon because there dollars is certainly a controlling factor but it seems to me oil dry everything else so i want your thoughts on on that one commodity and its impact on the others second question would be the ethanol debate that we have i come from a second largest district in  the state of ohio full disclosure i've actually voted against the farm bill though i thought too much interference in the marketplace but i want to i want to hear your thoughts on the ethanol issue and then third and this is we've talked about macro micro on a micro level question would be specific that the ethanol programs of been a big factor increasing grain prices they made a significant contribution and depending on what i m f study you read it's like between morning i think in the i think it was in the new york times that they're not going to let people take land out of the conservation program and plant even on a temporary basis which i tend to agree with you i mean i way both alluded to i think in terms of ethanol i would urge congress to re examine the commitments to ratchet up the amount of our corn stock that we're devoting i believe it's twenty five percent going up to forty a hunger business and when i try to determine what the need will be one of the factors i look at is the price of oil for two reasons one as i know farmers all over the world will be affected by the price of the inputs and the level of planting that happens in countries will be affected by the cost of inputs and the cost of transportation and we've seen again planting at one third one half of what it was a year ago because of the cost of the inputs but also we are in a world where food and fuel have been inexorably linked let's just talk globally now for a moment when fuel is over eighty dollars a barrel it becomes cost effective to turn food or agricultural products into fuel and so all over the world you're seeing pretty much anything that you can grow being turned into fuel when fuel prices are high eighty dollars is about the breaking point for getting out price by fuel buyers all over the world and we can't compete i don't have the depth of pockets to compete and so palm oil now is selling at that fuel prices fuel buyer prices pretty much on all the markets and this is driving up the cost i mean we are not getting the tenders and we have our contracts constantly broken so i'm buying food for kids in cambodia and i've had three contracts in a row broken after replace them people could come in and out bid that contract to the point that the penalty will be paid because the price is so much higher so it is there's a whole new world out there in food markets and they're very linked to the energy buyers i just let me ask you specifically would you be in favor of amending or having some flexibility in the c r p program which is the program that again pays farmers for not producing on land for conservation reason whatever but would you be in favor of some flexible in that program to put more land in production next year well we we have a problem at which is again a supply problem and i've urged the united states and europe and others to look at whether or not we need to up the availability of supply for humanitarian purposes last december so the us tells us we have a certain allotment of money to buy the food aid in us markets us buys an open markets there was no we to buy it was sold out to seventy two thousand and seven two thousand and the crop was sold out in fact it was sold at a one hundred twenty percent i think this is a real issue so depending on how long and how deep whatever the cause is you know for hungry people in the world whatever the cause is they're asking is the global system have resiliency to help them cope and so we have to keep buying for our program so whatever it takes to make sure that at least the humanitarian needs of the world are taken care of i think we all have to think that  i thought that only happened to me in south carolina no we don't receive any federal funds for the work that we do we're private nonprofit and we receive grant donations and other contributions we used to be federally funded but we are no longer oh you're talking about the i thought you meant my program and my program know the that the food bank program does receive federal funds as a matter of fact that the food bank association negotiated with the to receive all the to come oddities and also receive the ministration fees i'm sorry i thought might my particular program yes they do that the food banks do get surplus commodities and they have a contract with the department of social services so instead of once a month or once a quarter they used to distribute the foods why their people needed them are not what they now do is they have them at the food bank so that when people come to the food bank as needed the food banks and food pantries can distribute them on  food bank does is they have contracts with sister agencies where they will sell food at a very reduced rate to soup kitchens other social service providers and other pantries but th that is given away at the food pantry is surely given as a donation there are programs for example an angel ministries that does have reduced food packages that will take food stamps so that the food stamps can go further and they can get runs through the state of south carolina but i don't that through the department social services i don't believe there's any state dollars that are put into those programs at this time last year there was an effort to try to get some state funding for what was the called the snap program which is an afterschool children's snack program which i think they are and have to rename and unfortunately because the state budgets are in so much trouble while there was a little bit of money initially in the to the south you have the wherewithal have the food banks do try to put together packages that are nutritionally sound of course that becomes strained at times because their donations are down especially during the summer time or we're finding that the participation has been absolutely tremendous i mean summer time you don't have school nutrition programs so you have children at home and parents are coming in at a higher number with these these families they're trying to provide nutritional packages but when donations are dan you know that can sometimes be less so but i'm not a food bank operator i'm not sure i'm the the best person to provide that information but i can talk with our our food bank association i'd be happy to provide you all that information how many people  family i recently contacted the food bank and the numbers are up tremendously when i was talking to the head of the pantry of for the harvest hope food bank trying to talk to her about the number of people that were coming through she had i think she told me there was about a thirty five percent increase if that if i'm remembering it correctly over last year they are they are overwhelmed they cannot keep up with the demand so words when you go back to well they've been bringing a lot of folks from our community together to try to talk about how to address that but what they're trying to do is do more with food donations make sure that they have the tea you know the t fap and the they're getting the emergency food now that they can directly give their working with providers and to see if they can get donated product to i don't think there's a time that goes by the week why don't go somewhere where i don't see harvest hope canister out at some large office building where they're trying to get donations that they are at their total and complete maximum they're working to try to to get food stamp applications at the food bank so when people are calming who are non food food stamps they can get them on the program to try to help limit their dependency on the food bank but even for people on food stamps but stamps are not going far enough now they're not they have not kept up with the cost of food so they're coming to the food bank well i will say that this food crisis has triggered a major debate the developing world about how they position themselves in food security so many many countries did get out of the business of producing food came to rely on regional and global markets and now are coming up short and can't buy countries like liberia that are out there that can't compete for food at the level that it is their local production really ground down to you know very little except for crops for export i think we're really in a critical time for the world when you have a crisis kind of all the puzzle pieces get thrown up and people begin to ask how do they need to come down and countries are wondering do they need to hunker down and build up their own stocks and hoard and prepare and not count on global markets or can they count on global markets and i think this is why doha was so important to send a signal that global markets can be relied on that there will be open trade in food i mean you can't mess around with food right you either get it right or you have a big problem in your country so people are willing to take a lot of risks and when i meet now with leaders in africa or haiti and they're not producing enough food they're wondering if they have to go into a self sufficiency mode i will just say you know traveling through africa not every country can produce every type of crop and it's not cost effective to do so i was in one african country where there was tremendous hunger next door there was a lot of food there was a two hundred percent tariff between the countries so we do the world has to look at what type of global trade structures in food will help reduce hunger and the vulnerability of nations but right now is the time to do so and you know these things happen maybe at inconvenient times united states we're in the middle of an election and all this but the signals become very very important right now we have countries in deep crisis good countries good leaders who don't know how to get their food security together so i think you really hit the nail on the head and i know that i think you're going to farm your economy you know study economics and all these things are coming together to be in food it's the basic right it's not this is a luxury good so i'm really hoping we can get through this in a important one is we saw a charter earlier about increased spending by the united states government on food and nutrition assistance on those domestic or international the reality is that we have prices there's a need so we're going to have to invest more in the short term and we have to respond to this crisis in the short term and in the long term i think all the discussion here has been very very interesting but it struck me that one of the problems we have when it comes to food hunger and food security issues domestically and internationally is that we're not very good in this country in terms of a coordinated strategy is not one office that deals with food security issues in the united states is not one off comprehensive strategy what you need in the long term i mean whether it's the monetary issues or whether it's you know helping countries around the world develop their own kind of food security kind of plans i mean that's what's kind of lacking here and so that's a long term issue maybe we need of foods are whatever but in the short term i think that there are immediate urgent needs that don't give us the luxury to debate about you know what those long term