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REFORMING FOOD AID:

DESPERATE NEED TO DO BETTER

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

OCTOBER 7, 2015

Serial No. 114–108

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

PAUL COOK, California 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

DANIEL DONOVAN, New York 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

The Honorable Dan Glickman, vice president and executive director, Aspen 

Institute Congressional Program (former Secretary, U.S. Department of 

Agriculture) ........................................................................................................... 3

The Honorable Rajiv Shah, senior advisor, Chicago Council on Global Affairs 

(former Administrator, U.S. Agency for International Development) ............. 9

Christopher B. Barrett, Ph.D., David J. Nolan director, Stephen B. and Janice 

G. Ashley professor, Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and 

Management, Cornell University ........................................................................ 17

The Reverend David Beckmann, president, Bread for the World ....................... 27

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Dan Glickman: Prepared statement ............................................. 6

The Honorable Rajiv Shah: Prepared statement .................................................. 12

Christopher B. Barrett, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ............................................. 20

The Reverend David Beckmann: Prepared statement .......................................... 29

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 58

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 59

The Honorable Edward R. Royce, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of California, and chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs: Written 

statement from Howard G. Buffett, Chairman and CEO of the Howard 

G. Buffett Foundation .......................................................................................... 61

The Honorable David Cicilline, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Rhode Island: Written statement from Navyn Salem, Founder, Edesia 

Inc. ......................................................................................................................... 66

(1)

REFORMING FOOD AID:

DESPERATE NEED TO DO BETTER 

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2015

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:14 a.m., in room 

2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edward Royce (chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Chairman ROYCE. This committee will come to order. This morning we are going to discuss the need to bring more flexibility and 

efficiency and effectiveness to our U.S. international food aid program. 

And let me mention at the outset that there is a problem at the 

tarmac at Reagan Airport so we are going to see Mr. Engel in a 

while, but he is en route. 

So let me make the observation that a number of the members 

of this committee had an opportunity to travel with me to Tacloban 

after the horrible typhoon hit that island and see what the situation was like on the ground. Had it not been for the ability to work 

around our food aid program and get food there directly, had the 

food been shipped from the United States it would have taken 6 

months. 

Fortunately, food was prepositioned in advance of the hurricane 

season so it took 6 weeks. But had USAID not found a way to work 

around the restrictions, get the local purchases, get the voucher 

program in place, and start feeding people that week, you would 

have had an absolute crisis on Tacloban. I and other members of 

our committee saw that. 

So over the last 60 years the U.S. Government, in partnership 

with American farmers, as we know the history, and in partnership 

with shippers and NGOs, has helped to relieve the suffering of billions of starving people worldwide, but that proud legacy shouldn’t 

blind us to needed reforms here today. Desperately needed reforms. 

As we will hear today, our food aid is needlessly expensive, it takes 

too long to arrive, and it often does long-term damage to local 

economies. 

So those are the issues we are going to be discussing. Despite the 

fact that obtaining food closer to an area in crisis or providing 

vouchers can save time, money, and lives, current law requires that 

our food aid be purchased in and shipped from the United States, 

6 months away. And that 6 months to get the food there, that is 

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part of the problem. We are the only country that continues this 

approach to food aid. 

These requirements have real-life consequences. As Andrew 

Natsios, a former administrator of USAID, told this committee, ‘‘I 

watched people die waiting for food aid to arrive.’’ So again it took 

4 weeks when we prepositioned for U.S. food to arrive in the Philippines following the typhoon, it took 6 weeks to arrive in Nepal 

following the 2015 earthquake, and our food aid program simply 

wasn’t able to provide food when and where it was needed the 

most. 

Not only do U.S. purchase and shipping requirements slow us 

down and add unnecessary transportation costs, by the way, they 

can also distort local markets. That is the other thing we need to 

look at. In 2008, Americans saw truckloads of U.S. food being delivered to northern Kenya where famine threatened to kill millions. 

What we didn’t see, but now we understand, is that these truckloads of U.S. food depressed local prices and pushed farmers in 

other parts of Kenya who had an abundant harvest. But we had 

not transferred from where that harvest occurred to where the famine was occurring. That was not the way we addressed the issue. 

So instead, it pushed those farmers into deeper poverty, into bankruptcy. Local purchases of food would have avoided this devastating consequence, but that was not an option at the time under 

the rules. 

And this scenario has played out again and again from Afghanistan to Haiti. 

The challenges of food aid have changed since the program was 

first established in the 1950s. More and more in areas of conflict 

food is being used as a weapon against the population. Groups like 

ISIS and al-Shabaab are manipulating food aid. Convoys are being 

attacked. Some countries hosting large numbers of refugees have 

seen food aid destabilize their economies, and that makes the refugees unwelcome in their minds. Here again, the use of more flexible food aid tools could work, but we need a little flexibility in the 

equation and that is what we are trying to engineer here. 

Current law has not kept pace with today’s world. Our Government no longer holds surplus food stocks. Agricultural prices are 

stable, U.S. agricultural exports are at an all-time high, and demand is expected to increase. U.S. ports are doing quite well. Using 

food aid as a means to subsidize our economy can’t really be justified in situations where there is an emergency. 

And the ‘‘auxiliary reserve’’ that U.S. shipping requirements supposedly support—it has never been called up. In fact, the majority 

of U.S. ships that move food aid are not even ‘‘militarily useful.’’ 

Those that are, ultimately those are foreign owned. They are not 

owned by U.S. shipping companies. 

For the past 3 years, we have been fighting to advance common 

sense solutions that would enable the U.S. to reach more people in 

less time at less expense, and we have been fighting to put the emphasis back on saving lives. We have made some progress but it 

is not enough. 

If we allowed for just 25 percent of the Food for Peace budget to 

be used for more flexible food aid approaches when there is an 

emergency, like local purchase, vouchers or transfers, we could reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:58 Nov 25, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\100715\96906 SHIRL
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duce our response time from months to hours and reach at least 

2 million more people with lifesaving aid. If we bump that number 

up to 45 percent we could reach 6 million more. 

As we will hear today, we are in desperate need to do better. We 

need to embrace common sense reforms that allow us to use the 

right tool at the right time in the right place. 

With that I will turn to Mr. Engel after he arrives, after the testimony of our four witnesses. And let me introduce Mr. Dan Glickman. Many of us know him as the former Secretary of Agriculture 

from March ’95 until January 2001, and he served in the House for 

18 years representing the fourth district of Kansas. 

Dr. Raj Shah served as the 16th administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development where he led the Feed the Future 

and Power Africa initiatives. 

Dr. Chris Barrett teaches economics at Cornell University. Dr. 

Barrett has won several national and international awards for his 

research, which focuses on international agricultural development 

and on poverty reduction. 

Reverend David Beckmann has been president of Bread for the 

World since 1991 during which time he has fought to overcome 

hunger around the planet. He was recognized with the World Food 

Prize for his contributions. 

And we appreciate this distinguished panel here today. Without 

objection, the witnesses full prepared statements will be made part 

of the record. Members here will have 5 calendar days to submit 

any statements or any questions or any extraneous materials for 

the record. 

And Mr. Glickman, please summarize your remarks, if you will, 

Mr. Secretary. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DAN GLICKMAN, VICE 

PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ASPEN INSTITUTE 

CONGRESSIONAL PROGRAM (FORMER SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE) 

Mr. GLICKMAN. Thank you, Chairman Royce. It is an honor to be 

here to see former colleagues. I served with Dana Rohrabacher, I 

think it was on the House Science Committee, a long time ago. We 

both look pretty good, but it was a long time ago. And then of 

course Karen Bass just recently accompanied several of your colleagues on a visit to Tanzania as part of the Aspen Institute. 

So I am delighted to be here. And I think I am really here as 

much in my former role as Secretary of Agriculture and as a Congressman from Kansas and an agriculture guy, who sometimes agriculture and humanitarian interests are not necessarily on the 

same wavelength as it relates to the issue of food aid reform and 

flexibility. So I just wanted to give you my thoughts and thank you 

so much for having this hearing which is extremely important. 

I do agree with you, Mr. Chairman, that offering more flexibility 

in how food aid is distributed will allow the U.S. to feed more hungry people more quickly while empowering them to, over time, feed 

themselves. My first point I would make is in the last decade 

changes in the number and nature of conflicts, humanitarian disasters, massive migration, and refugee crises are forcing the United 

4

States and the world at large to rethink old paradigms about how 

we can deliver food assistance effectively and efficiently. 

This year, for the first time in history, we are facing four Level 

3 humanitarian crises, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and South Sudan. More 

than ever before our food aid resources are strained. And not too 

long ago the head of the World Food Program said that we did not 

have enough resources, either the United States or the world, to 

provide adequate food assistance to the refugees in Syria. This is 

a big problem, and it is an important problem for the United States 

because we provide roughly about half of the food assistance in the 

world and we are viewed as a great leader. 

So to alleviate short term hunger in both emergency and nonemergency situations, the U.S. needs a range of food and aid tools 

including food vouchers, local and regional purchase, in-kind support, and in some cases direct cash assistance. These tools have all 

been introduced on at least a limited basis over the past decade. 

My colleague and friend Raj Shah has done a transformational 

job at USAID trying to do this within the statutory authority that 

we are given. But as you point out, Mr. Chairman, statutory limitations often prevent policy makers from choosing the tool that will 

best meet food needs for the greatest number of people. 

Traditionally, food has been sourced from American growers. 

That was in part based upon constant surpluses after the Second 

World War, surpluses in corn and wheat and soybeans. And farmers have deep humanitarian ties to the rest of the world. But those 

surpluses drove the need for food aid based upon the direct transfer 

of crops and commodities. 

Those times have changed, as you point out. Supply and demand 

are at much better equilibrium around the world, and the inhibitions that you have pointed out through cargo preference, the NGO 

process of monetization, are not necessary these days like they 

might have been 20 or 30 years ago. 

The complex nature of emergencies today and the circumstances 

driving chronic hunger have rendered these approaches more inefficient than other delivery methods. Further, the food aid program 

no longer yields the same benefits to American agriculture and 

shipping industries as it once did. In fact, the whole scheme of humanitarian assistance and its resources and infrastructure, both 

how the U.S. does it and the rest of the world, is not up to the task 

of today’s problems given the chronic crises we have. 

Evidence suggests however that an important step in the right 

direction is to make America’s food aid program far more flexible 

and to favor a cash-based approach to ensure that we get the most 

mileage out of every food aid dollar invested. 

And this is not a one-size-fits-all. We will still need to provide 

commodities as we did in Haiti, as we did in the Philippines. It has 

to be part of our arsenal, but the statutory restrictions on how 

much commodities are given and under what circumstances are 

really hurting our ability to help people around the world. And 

those points have been made, I think, by everybody here who is 

talking about it. So, in my testimony I talk about the range of 

changing in tools in terms of cargo preference, in terms of monetization that need to be done. 

5

But I want to finish my testimony as the former Secretary of Agriculture. I want to emphasize that U.S. agriculture can and should 

be seen as an important partner in meeting food needs. Introducing 

more flexibility into America’s food aid program will not negatively 

impact the vast majority of U.S. food producers, but a failure to leverage the strengths of the U.S. agriculture and food sector will 

negatively affect our ability to advance food security. 

Food aid was responsible for about 1 billion out of 152 billion in 

commodity exports last fiscal year. A recent report by the American 

Enterprise Institute calculated that the share of U.S. corn production the previous 6 years used for food aid was less than 0.1 percent, and only 0.5 percent of corn exports were due to food aid programs. Because of global aid, global trade, other issues that are 

coming up, the need for U.S. agriculture to benefit directly from the 

shipment of American commodities overseas is not as great as it 

used to be before, and in fact it has a negative impact on our ability to serve the world. 

So, look, American agriculture has a lot to gain by stronger 

economies around the world, greater exports generally, bigger purchases of U.S. agriculture and fertilizer and related products, and 

a much stronger worldwide economy will allow U.S. producers to 

benefit rather dramatically. So it really is in our interest to make 

these food aid programs more sensible and more flexible, and that 

is the bottom line in all of this. It does not hurt American agriculture; it ultimately will help American agriculture rather dramatically. 

So I urge this committee to consider U.S. agriculture a partner 

in pursuing food aid reforms, to talk to people within the agriculture community, to find ways that we can work through some 

of the politics of these problems, but at the same time recognizing 

to feed a hungry world and to save millions of lives we do need to 

make these programs much more flexible than they currently are. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Glickman follows:]

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Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

Raj. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE RAJIV SHAH, SENIOR ADVISOR, CHICAGO COUNCIL ON GLOBAL AFFAIRS (FORMER ADMINISTRATOR, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT) 

Mr. SHAH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to commend 

you for your extraordinary leadership on this issue, also Congressman Engel and so many other friends and colleagues on this panel. 

The Pope’s recent visit reminded us that America’s role as the 

world’s leader in humanitarian affairs really is a signal part of our 

national security and global presence. Of course, our humanitarian 

history is that we started as a great humanitarian nation internationally with food assistance, sending surplus American commodities abroad after the Surplus Commodity Act. This legacy has fed 

more than 3 billion people over 60 years, and as Secretary Glickman points out, and has done so much to preserve this legacy, this 

is an extraordinary, extraordinary achievement. 

But today we have many, many food crises that are not just food 

crises. The fact that there are so many hungry children, women, 

and families in Syria is not just a food crisis, it is creating a refugee crisis that contributes to destabilizing that region. The fact 

that so many young children, more than 1,000 in the camps in 

South Sudan, have telltale orange hair because they are so acutely 

malnourished and on the verge of starvation is not just a humanitarian priority, it is leading to instability throughout that region. 

And the fact that our presence and capacity to support those in 

Nepal is diminished because of our lack of flexibility and how we 

conduct our food assistance is also not just a moral issue, it has 

security and stability consequences. 

And today we are having this debate in a context where we know 

a lot of the evidence around whether or not reform and flexibility 

in the food assistance program works. We have evidence that 

shows that targeting the most vulnerable children with vouchers, 

often sent electronically on SMS texts on their mobile phone, actually saves their lives in crises far more effectively than shipping 

American food and trucking it into communities where that kind 

of targeting capacity is not possible. 

To just put it in perspective, the Somalia famine of 2011, which 

I take as one of the most, in my view, meaningful moments of my 

tenure at USAID, would have led to more than 100,000 children 

dying. In fact, 35,000 children already had died before the targeting and the SMS program went into place. And then the child 

deaths came down so fast and so effectively that we virtually 

stopped child death from that famine the moment we put that program in place. We can only do that because of flexibility that we 

had in other programs. 

Shipping over U.S. grain is now known to be less valuable than 

feeding children with these ready-to-use supplemental and therapeutic foods. This little packet of peanut butter-like paste, which 

doesn’t taste quite as good as peanut butter, having had some, resuscitates children so much faster and so much more effectively 

10

than giving them corn-soy blend or any of the other more traditional food assistance products. 

These products are created in New Jersey and Texas and Rhode 

Island. I have met, along with Congressman Cicilline, the employees of these companies that are often refugees themselves that take 

great pride in the fact that they are serving this country and our 

ability to project our values around the world. And we can do this 

in a way that creates American jobs and uses American knowledge 

and medical know-how to actually save lives. 

We know local purchases, as Chairman Royce mentioned, is faster and cheaper than the alternatives. It is 25 percent less costly 

in Tacloban, but also in every other crisis the first few weeks and 

months of aid and assistance do not come from the traditional Food 

for Peace program. They come from a different pocket of resources 

that we use so that we can locally purchase and locally serve food 

and meet needs when they are needed. And then Food for Peace 

comes in many months later using a program that was designed six 

decades ago. 

By the way, we also know that those efforts can be branded just 

as proudly. In fact, one of my favorite photos is from the Tacloban 

response when we had U.S. military personnel carrying a box of locally purchased foods that were labeled USAID that said ‘‘From the 

American people’’ and that communicated the same sense of national pride and commitment as any other form of branding with 

respect to food assistance. 

And finally, we know that monetization in its current form is just 

a waste of money at best, and in reality is far more consequential 

and that it depresses prices for local farmers. When we ended 

monetization in Haiti we immediately created incentives for tens of 

thousands of farm households to double their food yields. We then 

supplemented that effort with targeted feeding programs that 

reached the most vulnerable children. 

And today, 50 percent of child hunger has gone—child hunger is 

down by more than 50 percent in Haiti compared to the day before 

the earthquake. Not because we are using Food for Peace in its traditional form, but because we are ending some of the harmful practices of an antiquated program that sometimes causes more harm 

than benefit. This is real data. This was enabled by the farm bill’s 

increasing flexibility that lets us test new approaches and see what 

is happening. It was enabled by the Bush administration’s local 

and regional procurement program which gave us the database to 

understand whether these new ways of working have effectiveness 

or not. 

And today we live in a world where this reform is politically 

achievable. Big agriculture companies like Cargill, growers like the 

National Farmers Union, policy experts from the left and the right, 

including the American Enterprise Institute and even some of the 

largest shipping companies in the world, have come together to say, 

let’s do this differently because America’s humanitarian leadership 

matters for our world, and they want to see it sustained in a different way in the future. 

So I welcome the opportunity to be with you, and I want to congratulate and thank you for your interest. I do believe the time is 

now to live up to the Pope’s call. I think you can pass food aid reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:58 Nov 25, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\100715\96906 SHIRL
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form in this body. I think you can pass Feed the Future and authorize that bipartisan legislation, which I understand now has 

nearly 80 co-sponsors on its way to 100. 

And I think if you do those two things in this Congress, America’s leadership in fighting hunger around the world will be sustained for the next decades and it will be something we can all be 

very, very proud and grateful for. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Shah follows:]

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Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Dr. Shah. 

Dr. Barrett. 

STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER B. BARRETT, PH.D., DAVID J. 

NOLAN DIRECTOR, STEPHEN B. AND JANICE G. ASHLEY PROFESSOR, CHARLES H. DYSON SCHOOL OF APPLIED ECONOMICS AND MANAGEMENT, CORNELL UNIVERSITY 

Mr. BARRETT. Chairman Royce, honorable members, thank you 

very much for the opportunity to testify today and to summarize 

my written remarks. Let me come straight to the point. The body 

of research on food aid is extraordinarily clear. Restrictions imposed on U.S. international food aid programs waste taxpayer 

money at great human cost. Relative to the reformed programs operated by other countries, aid agencies, and by private nonprofit 

agencies, the cost of U.S. food aid are excessive, delivery is slow, 

and the programs have not kept pace with global emergency needs. 

And there is no hard evidence that this benefits American agriculture, maritime employment, or military readiness. 

No debate remains among serious scholars who have studied the 

issue. U.S. food aid reform is long overdue. U.S. food aid is a limited and declining resource. Inflation adjusted U.S. food aid spending has declined 80 percent since the mid-1960s high. Given limited resources, we simply must be much more strategic in using 

U.S. food aid resources. 

Four statutory restrictions imposed on these programs waste 

money and cost lives. First, under the Food for Peace Act, it is required that agricultural commodities be bought in and shipped 

from the United States only. Perhaps that made sense back in 1954 

for the reasons Secretary Glickman explained. But today things are 

different. The government no longer holds large commodity stocks 

and the resulting surplus disposal purpose no longer applies. 

Today, the most effective way to help hungry people is to provide 

them with cash or electronic transfers or with food purchased locally or regionally, so-called LRP. The peer-reviewed scientific evidence shows very clearly that LRP and cash or electronic transfers 

save time, money, and lives, while providing food that is equally 

safe and healthy and is in fact preferred by recipients over commodities shipped from the U.S. I go into further detail in my written comments. 

Second, at least 50 percent of U.S. food aid must be shipped on 

U.S.-flagged vessels under cargo preference provisions. Recent 

studies find that cargo preference inflates ocean freight costs by 23 

to 46 percent relative to open market freight rates. The net result 

is $40 million to $50 million a year that is appropriated to help 

feed starving children that instead turns into windfall profits diverted to mainly foreign shipping lines. 

Third, at least 15 percent of non-emergency food aid must be 

monetized under current law. As the previous witnesses have explained, monetization is simply a waste of money. GAO estimates 

that inefficiency in monetization reduces the funding available for 

development projects by more than $70 million annually. 

Fourth, current law requires that between 20 and 30 percent of 

Food for Peace funding and no less than $350 million be available 

for non-emergency food aid. But with the number of people affected 

18

by disasters and war at an all-time high, there is simply insufficient food aid available to handle all the emergencies we face, 

where the bang for the food aid buck is greatest. That hard earmark is binding and limits America’s capacity to respond to humanitarian emergencies around the world. 

Cumulatively, American taxpayers spend far more on shipping 

and handling than on food. Every taxpayer dollar spent on U.S. 

food aid generates only 35 to 40 cents worth of food commodity purchased. That doesn’t go to hungry and disaster-affected people, twothirds of it is going elsewhere. Canada, by contrast, has no such 

restrictions and makes far more extensive use of LRP cash and 

electronic transfers. As a result, its taxpayers get roughly twice as 

much food for the taxpayer dollar, about 70 cents worth, as compared to our 35 to 40 cents. 

And what are the costs, the human costs of these wasteful restrictions on food aid? A very coarse, conservative estimate is that 

we sacrifice 40 to 45,000 children’s lives each year because of the 

unnecessary costs associated with restriction that is posed by antiquated food aid policies. 

Now special interests claim that cargo preference advances military readiness. But that myth has been conclusively exploded by 

multiple careful recent studies that find the overwhelming majority 

of the agricultural cargo preference fleet is out of date and fails to 

satisfy DoD standards of military usefulness. In 60-plus years of 

cargo preference, DoD has not once mobilized a mariner or a vessel 

from the non-Maritime Security Program cargo preference fleet. 

Hence, the Department of Defense and Homeland Security’s clear 

support for food aid reform in recent years. 

Proponents of the status quo also advance claims of maritime 

employment benefits. Yet, the 2012 reduction in cargo preference 

coverage from 75 percent to 50 percent does not appear to have led 

to the ceasing of a single vessel’s ocean freight services or the loss 

of any mariner jobs. And this type of indirect subsidy is so inefficient that any maritime job created comes at a taxpayer cost of 

roughly $100,000 a year. 

Moreover, the bulk of those windfall profits don’t accrue to workers, they accrue to vessel owners, and a sizeable majority of the 

vessel owners are actually foreign shipping lines running U.S. subsidiaries. So these windfall profits aren’t even accruing to Americans. 

Some proponents of in-kind food aid claim that food aid purchased in the U.S. somehow helps American farmers. Secretary 

Glickman, I think, has addressed this quite well already, but there 

is not a single careful study that supports the claim that U.S. food 

aid helps American farmers. The simple fact is that U.S. food aid 

programs procure only hundreds of million dollars’ worth of U.S. 

commodities in a several-hundred-billion-dollar U.S. agricultural 

economy that is very tightly integrated into a $4-trillion global 

market. U.S. food aid does not determine the prices farmers receive. The global market determines the prices farmers receive. 

U.S. food aid has done lots of good in 60-plus years. It is an incredibly valuable resource for humanitarian response. It is a highly 

visible symbol of Americans’ commitment to feed the world’s hungry. But we can do better. We could do much better if Congress will 

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provide the USAID Administrator and the Secretary of Agriculture 

with the flexibility to employ best practices through four reforms. 

First, relax the restriction against cash-based international food 

assistance; second, eliminate the statutory minimum on monetization of non-emergency food aid; third, eliminate the hard earmark 

that protects less productive non-emergency food aid over emergency assistance; and fourth, eliminate cargo preference. 

Honorable members, you have a choice. You can keep the status 

quo and keep diverting U.S. taxpayer money from disaster-affected 

children to foreign companies, or you can enact changes that will 

help save the world’s hungry far more efficiently, effectively and 

quickly. Thank you very much for your time and attention and for 

taking up this very valuable activity. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Barrett follows:]

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Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. 

Reverend Beckmann. David, if you just hit that red button. 

STATEMENT OF THE REVEREND DAVID BECKMANN, 

PRESIDENT, BREAD FOR THE WORLD 

Rev. BECKMANN. Thank you, Chairman Royce and members of 

the committee. Bread for the World is a nationwide network of individuals and churches and church bodies that encourage Congress 

to do things that will help hungry people in our country and 

around the world. And I want to thank this committee for your 

leadership on this issue of food aid reform, also on the related but 

separate issue of the Global Food Security Act. I think they should 

be kept separate. But in both of these, these are both areas of legislation that are clearly important to the world’s continued progress 

against hunger and I am grateful. 

In my written testimony I explain why Bread for the World supports the things we are talking about here, more flexibility for 

local, regional purpose, loosening the cargo preference restrictions, 

and eliminating monetization. I just think the evidence is so clear 

that if we could have reform of food aid we would have more efficient, more effective food assistance. In my oral testimony I would 

like to focus on the relationship of food aid to three broader concerns. The first one is the current surge in humanitarian need. 

Most of this is because of the war in Syria, but there is also severe 

humanitarian need in Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Central African Republic. The resources are just not keeping up with the need. 

I am struck that we are cutting back on food rations for Syrian 

refugees. Just from a national security point of view, it does not 

make sense to cut back on food ration for Syrian refugees. And food 

aid reform is one way of stretching our dollars to meet the increased need that we face right now for humanitarian assistance. 

I would also like to talk about the connection of food aid to American agriculture. I grew up in Nebraska. In fact, I just flew back 

from a visit to my family in Nebraska. So I share in the sense, the 

deep sense of satisfaction, almost a religious sense of connection between the production of food in this country and the needs of hungry people in our country and around the world. 

But food aid isn’t any longer economically important to American 

agriculture. What is important to American agriculture is the fact 

that the world is making dramatic progress against hunger and extreme poverty. The escape of hundreds of millions people from extreme poverty means that there are a lot more people in the world 

who are eating, eating adequately, and that creates an expanding 

and dynamic market for U.S. agriculture. So I think that is the 

basis for the ongoing and continuing alliance between U.S. agricultural community and the interests of hungry people in our country 

and around the world. 

There have been questions raised about committee jurisdiction. 

That is important, but it is not pressing in the same way that reform of the programs is pressing, and so I hope you can handle 

that question of committee jurisdiction in a way that doesn’t hold 

up the reform process. 

Finally, I want to talk about food aid reform in relationship to 

the world’s extraordinary progress against hunger, poverty and disVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:58 Nov 25, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\100715\96906 SHIRL
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ease. I am a preacher, so I think this progress that is happening 

is an experience of our loving God in our own history. 

When the Pope was here, as Raj said, he talked a lot about people in need. When he talked to Congress he specifically celebrated 

the progress that the world is now making against poverty. And he 

said, ‘‘The fight against poverty and hunger must be fought constantly and on many fronts.’’ Reforming food aid is one way to fight 

hunger, and using it as one way to move toward the virtual hunger 

in our times is certainly sacred business. 

[The prepared statement of Rev. Beckmann follows:]

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Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, David. 

Rev. BECKMANN. Thank you. 

Chairman ROYCE. We will go now to Mr. Eliot Engel for his opening statement. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you 

for calling this hearing. And, as the ranking member, I want to just 

say that this is another wonderful example of the bipartisanship of 

the Foreign Affairs Committee. Thank you for bringing the committee’s focus to the pressing need to reform our food aid program. 

And we are fortunate of course, and we have heard from them, 

to have a panel of experts who have dealt with this issue inside 

government and the NGO world and academic settings. So I want 

to say to all our witnesses, thank you for sharing your views and 

welcome to the Foreign Affairs Committee. 

I want to single out Dr. Shah, who I had the pleasure of working 

with for many years with the USAID, and it is good to see you 

again Raj and welcome you. And Dan Glickman, who, by the time 

I came to Congress 27 years ago, was already a rising star in Congress. So actually he was already a star, not even rising, and then 

served as the distinguished Secretary of Agriculture. And it is really great to see you as well, Dan. Dr. Barrett, Reverend Beckmann, 

your legend precedes you. So this is just a wonderful panel, and we 

are so fortunate to have all of you here today. 

Let’s note at the outset the world is better off because of the 

Food for Peace program. Since it was launched in the 1950s, this 

effort has fed more than 1 billion people in more than 150 countries. It has saved countless lives. Food for Peace is something of 

which we should all be proud. 

But we should also be honest. Food for Peace is now showing its 

age. It was designed to meet challenges in a much different world. 

For example, the majority of our food aid in developing countries 

must be bought and shipped from the United States even when 

local food is available at a lower price. In the 1950s, this made 

sense. The Federal Government had a massive surplus of food on 

its hands. Food for Peace was a smart way to help those in need 

and to prevent needless waste. 

But today we don’t have that surplus of food. What is more, buying food and transporting it from the U.S. to a crisis zone costs almost 50 percent more than purchasing food products locally. That 

is not a very good bang for our buck. And when we are talking 

about feeding hungry people, every little bit obviously counts. 

But to make matters worse, under our current program, it takes 

4 to 6 months longer for food to reach hungry people than it would 

if we bought food locally. Raj Shah and I had many of these discussions when he was USAID Administrator. To put it in the simplest 

terms, the Food for Peace program is slow, it is costly, and it is not 

doing enough to get food to people who are hungry and dying. 

So we need to take a fresh look at this program. After all, even 

though the world has changed a great deal, obviously the need for 

food assistance hasn’t. A refugee crisis in Syria is spilling from the 

Middle East into Europe and onto our own shores. A devastating 

earthquake in Nepal has left thousands in desperate need of help. 

And of course, with each passing year, we are feeling the far-reaching effects of climate change more and more. Hurricanes and tyVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:58 Nov 25, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\100715\96906 SHIRL
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phoons of unprecedented destructive power, even as historic 

droughts endanger the global food supply. 

So we need to take a fresh look at the program. We need to make 

sure food aid is tailored to meet the challenges of our time. The administration has put forth suggestions, so have lawmakers. And let 

me acknowledge Chairman Royce for his leadership in particular 

on this issue. 

The common theme in these proposals is flexibility. Sometimes it 

will make the most sense to buy American agriculture and to contract with American shippers to get food where it needs to go. 

Sometimes buying local products will get us the best outcome. We 

need a program flexible enough to respond in the best way on a 

case-by-case basis. 

Today I am looking forward to hearing our witnesses answer 

questions. I want to hear the ideas of what this program looks like 

and the right way to put it together. In particular, I would like to 

focus on the benefits of a cash-based system versus in-kind commodity donations, on new methods of delivery, and on local and regional procurement programs. 

Reforming a longstanding government program is never an easy 

task, but the need for these changes is clear. It goes back to why 

we have a food aid program in the first place. Not to subsidize 

growers, shippers, or NGOs, but to prevent men, women, and children in the developing world from starving to death. So let’s work 

toward building a new program that meets this critical demand in 

the most efficient and effective way for the American taxpayer. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your courtesy. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Engel. Mr. Engel raises the 

issue, Dr. Shah, of flexibility in this. Maybe you can give us an example of when you were director and how in a given situation a 

little more flexibility would have gone a long way in terms of responding. 

Mr. SHAH. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would note 

what David said. In Syria and in neighboring countries you had a 

lot of Syrian refugees leaving Syria going into Jordan and Lebanon 

and they are not living in camps, they are living in neighborhoods 

and communities. And in that context, physically finding them inside of apartment buildings and in low-income housing situations, 

and taking to them food or having them come with some special 

designation to pick up American food is both deeply inefficient, upsetting to everybody else in the neighborhood, and difficult for local 

businesses that are dependent on the local food economy. 

So with the World Food Program we work to let them use, not 

through Food for Peace but other programs, vouchers that would 

go to those households. And I met with mothers and children, but 

the mothers would say, these vouchers—which say from the American people, they have the USAID logo on them—they say these are 

saving our lives right now. I don’t know where my husband is. He 

may have perished in the fighting inside of Syria, but my four children and I are sustained here because we can take these vouchers 

to local stores. And by the way, the local merchants and local communities are less upset about the big influx of refugees because 

they are contributing now to the local economy. 

34

The fact that we have run out of money, basically, for this kind 

of approach and are now stuck with just commodity food is why 

you are hearing about the cuts that David highlighted. And to me 

this is a national security issue. This is the heart of where refugees 

are pouring from this region into the rest of Europe and elsewhere 

causing real instability. So we are undermining our own capacity 

to do what we know is right and has worked, because we don’t 

have the flexibility. 

Chairman ROYCE. Let me ask Secretary Glickman, because Dr. 

Barrett in his testimony said Canada uses a different approach and 

gets roughly twice the benefit in terms of the amount of food aid 

on the ground in these situations. 

You noted the GAO study that says that shipping food from the 

U.S. to sub-Saharan Africa took 100 days, on average, longer than 

procuring food from regional sources in cases of emergency and 

such, so we are not the only ones providing food aid around the 

world. Maybe you could share with us how other top donors like 

Europe and Canada and Japan structure their food aid. 

Mr. GLICKMAN. Nobody structures their food aid exactly like we 

do, that is for sure. But in history, I remember looking at magazines like Time magazine and others, and we advertised that all of 

this overseas food were American grain going in American bags, 

and I remember as a kid seeing all of that. You all probably do too 

as well. 

And so the impression was, is that these were important humanitarian products that were moving from a farm in Texas or Oklahoma or Kansas or Ohio or wherever directly to people overseas. 

And I think that that has had an impact politically, accompanied 

by the cargo preference thing, to a kind of resistance to wanting 

to make the programs more flexible. It has almost become ideological or religious in some circles that this is kind of part of the history. 

But other countries—Canada is a huge producer of commodities, 

wheat, corn, cotton; wheat and corn, not so much cotton, but grain 

sorghum, some soybeans and then legumes and pulse crops and everything else—they have just got a more flexible way of dealing 

with the problem. They can get their crops there faster. But we 

still provide half the food in the world, roughly, the United States 

of America. 

Chairman ROYCE. You mentioned also, and maybe I will go to 

Dr. Barrett for this, the cargo preference vessels being a factor in 

this. And Dr. Barrett, what is the setup of these corporations? You 

mentioned that they are not American owned, so how are they able 

to take advantage of U.S. law in this respect and how does that figure in the calculus here? 

Mr. BARRETT. Well, Mr. Chairman, the law requires that the vessels fly a U.S. flag and follow all U.S. laws and regulations. They 

don’t require that the ultimate equity holders be American. And so 

foreign corporations, three in particular, own at least 45 percent of 

the U.S. agricultural cargo preference fleet. Foreign corporations 

can set up U.S. subsidiaries, purchase a vessel, flag it with a U.S. 

flag, follow all U.S. law, but the profits reaped by those vessels accrue to the subsidiary and pass right on through to the foreign corporation that ultimately holds the subsidiary. 

35

Chairman ROYCE. I see. I see. My time is expired. I need to go 

to Mr. Engel for his questions. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me ask Dr. Shah. 

There is an ongoing debate over the use of cash-based food assistance, whether it is cash or food vouchers. I obviously knew, as we 

all know, the benefits, timeliness of food getting to desperate people, and it is less costly to implement. But opponents argue that 

this is susceptible to fraud. 

Let me ask you, with retina and other biometric scans and mobile tracking data and other technologies, how secure is a cashbased system? We hear of success stories like the one in Zaatari, 

refugee camps in Jordan. There is a market where people can buy 

and select their food, giving them some semblance of dignity. Aren’t 

we one of the few remaining major donor countries to hold on to 

an in-kind food donation system? 

Mr. SHAH. Well, thank you. And yes, we are the only major donor 

that continues to send our food as opposed to our resources, and 

that impinges the capacity to be successful for all of the implementing partners. I would note on security of electronic vouchers 

and paper vouchers, at this point we now have 8 years of history 

doing this. 

So before it was debatable to say, ‘‘Oh, is this going to be less 

secure or less effective?’’ What we now know is that this is probably more secure because you can target the household. You don’t 

get convoys being attacked, because you are not sending convoys of 

cash; you are sending an electronic payment through a secure system to a vulnerable household. 

And by the way, the alternative is that food shipments are often 

attacked, and that speaks to the security risks of doing this work 

in increasingly challenging conflict-affected environments. So there 

really is no debate anymore about is this more secure, less secure. 

It is clearly as or more secure. 

There is also no debate about is it effective or less effective. It 

is far more effective. It is certainly more efficient, but it also allows 

us to do a better job of targeting the most vulnerable families and 

children within a community. And that was basically the example 

of Somalia. It is like once you had that targeting done well you 

could make a huge, huge difference in a child’s death through a 

famine very, very, very quickly. And you would never be able to do 

that if you had the physical responsibility of providing people with 

actual food that came from the United States. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you. Let me ask Secretary Glickman. When 

the Food for Peace program was initiated back in the 1950s, obviously the landscape for American food aid was much different than 

it is today. There were high agricultural surpluses, low prices that 

were threatening the security of U.S. farmers. The U.S. shipping 

industry was in decline and food needs around the world were ever 

increasing. 

What is different now, and, in your opinion, why would reform 

be a big plus for American agriculture? 

Mr. GLICKMAN. Surpluses of the major commodity crops are no 

longer nearly as great. There are still some crops with surpluses 

episodically, periodically, but overall we are dealing with supply 

and demand in the world. As Dr. Barrett talked about, a global 

36

world which is much more in sync and in equilibrium. So therefore 

the need to use surpluses to, let’s say, bring down supplies to get 

price up is no longer anywhere near what it was before. And it 

probably has no impact on the price, also as Dr. Barrett says. 

These are global markets and the amount of food aid in the total 

amount of exports of corn and wheat and sorghum particularly is 

extraordinarily small. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you. Let me get back to Dr. Shah. Dr. Shah, 

you and I during the Haiti crisis talked a great deal about what 

we should do in Haiti, and I visited there a number of times and 

we talked about this. So the earthquake there really impacted us 

all. 

The people of the region obviously are still suffering from the destruction today. I have seen firsthand how the sale of American 

rice under the Food for Peace program there drove the local rice 

farmers out of business, making it harder for the Haitians to feed 

themselves. So if we had enacted the reforms to food aid before the 

earthquake hit Haiti 5 years ago, how would our response to this 

tragedy have been better and how would it have been different in 

other disaster situations? 

Mr. SHAH. Well, we have a very specific answer to that question 

because as a result of using non-Food for Peace assistance tools 

and shutting down Food for Peace, American food handouts, and 

monetization in particular, we were able to basically test and answer exactly what would happen. And we saw what would happen. 

We have seen a more than doubling of farm production in Haiti as 

a result of taking away the dumping of American food and enabling 

and supporting those farmers to have access to better science and 

technology through Feed the Future. 

We have seen voucher programs like the one implemented by 

CARE International that target the most vulnerable households 

and children, give them a biometrically secure card, as you point 

out, and then allow their children to get access to the kinds of foods 

people need when they are malnourished. Not just bags of rice, 

which as we know has very limited total nutritional value for a 

starving child. 

And the result has been proven in the Demographic and Health 

Survey, which is by far, it is frankly the only, it is also the best 

actual survey out there to tell you what is happening, and acute 

malnutrition in Haiti is 50 percent lower today amongst children 

than it was the day before the earthquake. 

This could happen everywhere we do the work if we had food aid 

reform because we know we have the science, we have the technology, we have the know-how, and frankly we have the capacity 

to study the impacts and we know how to do this. It is just the program was designed 60 years ago and we keep doing the same 

things we did 60 years ago. 

Mr. ENGEL. Let me just, with the chairman’s indulgence, pivot it 

back to Secretary Glickman about this. Critics argue that buying 

food in-country instead of delivering U.S. commodities actually undermines the message of U.S. generosity and goodwill for those in 

need. So I don’t believe that but I want to hear what you believe. 

Do you believe that USAID can still send the message that the 

U.S. is a partner for development and here to help those in need 

37

around the world while being more flexible in how it spends U.S. 

food assistance dollars? 

Mr. GLICKMAN. I do. Saying that, I think that I am not one that 

would eliminate in-kind assistance totally, because I think there is 

a role for U.S. commodities when it can’t be purchased locally and/

or when the voucher program doesn’t work or you have these imminent emergencies like we had in Haiti or other places. 

However, American generosity is real. Just one example on this 

conference we went in Tanzania that Congresswoman Bass went 

with me on. What struck me about this was the positive feelings 

about the United States of America. There is Chinese investment 

all over Tanzania, mostly in infrastructure, but some in agriculture 

and some in sanitation and water, but mostly in infrastructure. 

And yet, the clear acknowledgment from people we went to was 

American generosity writ large is profoundly agreed to, well respected, and it is one of the few places in the world I have been 

to where I honestly believe we are very popular in terms of what 

we do. And I think in large part that is due to the totality of American assistance in health, which is a big thing. It started with 

President Bush and Bill Gates and others, in agriculture, in education and infrastructure. There is still a whole litany of problems 

to be solved there, but I don’t view this issue as hurting our ability 

to be a positive influence. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. We go now to Congressman Dana 

Rohrabacher from California. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. We define ourselves 

very much by the things that we do, and not necessarily what we 

say or what we would like to have other people think about us but 

what we actually pay attention to and try to get done. And let me 

commend Chairman Royce. Since he has been here he has made 

his priority, first it was reforming freedom broadcasting that America does. That was his number one goal here and worked so hard 

on that and has had an impact on that. 

And also the second thing that he has made it his priority has 

been reforming American food aid. And he fought a big fight on the 

floor, I backed him up I want you to know. And so I think we can 

be very proud of those values, Ed, and very proud to serve with 

you. 

We need to restructure American foreign aid. I don’t think that 

we can give grants to people, frankly, anymore. That in a way of 

basically expanding American interests around the world, foreign 

aid, I think, has to go from nation building—and in many of those 

cases in the past what we have done is sustain poverty rather than 

break the chain of poverty and help special interests in various 

groups. That I believe foreign aid needs to be an emergency response to the world in times of natural catastrophe, times when 

things are really desperate for people we can come and help. 

And we have got to expect America to be able to do that. I don’t 

think we can be a nation-building organization for everywhere in 

the world anymore, we just can’t afford it. I would suggest that 

when there is a natural catastrophe or some upheaval that would 

be what we would want to do, because, Reverend, it is not just up 

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et is to work through those who believe in God, and God inspires 

us to do good work. There is not going to be a lightning bolt from 

heaven solving these problems. 

Dr. Shah, I really want to know about that packet because I 

know you have been waving it at us. And I will tell you that that 

makes sense to me. Is that a packet say that will, you can give that 

packet to some starving child and that will prevent starvation of 

a child? 

Mr. SHAH. Yes, sir. This is based on a product called Plumpy’nut. 

It is a peanut paste which is very high protein. And Dan and I and 

so many others have been to these places where you have a child 

who can barely hold up their head. They are in a dusty camp in 

Dadaab where they have just come out of Somalia, and instead of 

mixing in that sitting water, corn-soy blend, and producing a porridge that is, frankly, low in protein, you can give them a pre-prepared food that is much, much, much more effective at resuscitating them very quickly. And they will go in 2 to 3 weeks, as little 

as 10 days actually, of targeted feeding, they will go from looking 

like they are on the verge of death to being a sort of fat-faced smiling little kid that has been resuscitated. And that is just knowledge, technology, and know-how. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And can we produce this in such numbers as 

it makes sense economically to do that as compared to making that 

porridge? 

Mr. SHAH. Absolutely. We make this in Rhode Island. We can 

make this all over this country. And frankly, if left to its own devices, 10 years from now in my view we should be sending almost 

no bags of grain. I mean, it is just not 1954. I mean, we should be 

sending targeted, nutritionally enhanced foods that resuscitate 

children as they need it. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. How much does that packet cost then to 

send? 

Mr. SHAH. So I don’t know the actual costs of the different products. Some are for supplementary feeding; some are for therapeutic 

feeding, which means children who are right on the verge of starvation. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. But what about that nutritional thing just 

that basically you were mentioning? 

Mr. SHAH. The nutritional impact of this? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes, yes. No, no, no. How much does that 

cost? 

Mr. SHAH. Oh. Well, I would put it this way. Ten days or 2 weeks 

of targeted feeding with newer technologies like this is a much 

more cost effective way of resuscitating a child than shipping over 

a bag of grain, mixing it with water, feeding them porridge. And 

by the way, even more on the cost because you have to sustain that 

activity for months in order for them to be resuscitated off of porridge. That is why we don’t—we wouldn’t do this in the United 

States. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Because you had mentioned it doesn’t taste 

as good as peanut butter they will want to go to their own local 

food as soon as they can and as soon as that is available. 

Mr. SHAH. It is a little dense. They make it so that the kids like 

it, but it is a little dense if you or I were tasting it. 

39

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay, well, thank you very much. Thank all 

of you for your good hearts and trying to get us to do something 

positive out of Congress here. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. Karen Bass of California. 

Ms. BASS. Let me join in thanking the chair and the ranking 

member for this hearing and also for your leadership on this issue. 

And like the ranking member said, I think it is another example 

of how this committee works in a very bipartisan fashion. 

I have had the opportunity in several countries, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya—Mr. Glickman mentioned the trip to Tanzania recently—it is really inspiring to meet with local communities, local 

villages, and see how they have moved from subsistence farming to 

now turning a profit and actually being able to develop their villages and share that knowledge. 

And I think it is an incredible example of how we can make a 

contribution that is not just a one-time contribution of let me give 

you some food, but let me share our scientific knowledge in farming 

so that you can become independent and productive on your own. 

So I am a big supporter. There is no question about that. 

And it is wonderful to see you back with us, Dr. Shah. You seem 

so much more relaxed. And Mr. Glickman and the other panelists, 

really appreciate your time today. 

But I want to raise some questions that have been raised by my 

colleagues who are either not sure whether they support a change 

in policy or actually differ with it. And you have made reference 

to some of these points, but I wanted you to draw out and articulate it more. One of my colleagues is concerned about the maritime 

employment, and specifically because there is a school in his district for merchant marines and he is worried that if we make further changes in the program that then there will not be the jobs 

for merchant marines. So I want to know if you would talk about 

that. 

Other members are concerned about the money. When it says 

that we are going to hand out cash they are worried about the accountability and how we manage that. Dr. Shah, you mentioned 

that it is electronic transfers, and I am wondering how that takes 

place specifically in countries like Somalia or in rural areas. You 

talked about problems about monetization, the current program. If 

you could describe that and the change that needs to be made. So 

I would just throw that open to the panel for anyone that would 

like to answer. 

Mr. SHAH. Well, thank you. And thank you for your leadership. 

Maybe I will go backwards through these. So monetization, just to 

be clear on what this is I want to offer an example about a program we actually ran in the DRC, Democratic Republic of Congo. 

To get money to an NGO to help them protect women and girls in 

a farm community in eastern Congo that was characterized by 

strife, we were buying food in the American Midwest, shipping it, 

I believe, out of Louisiana, then watching it go all the way to Africa, having ground transport from the port to eastern Congo, selling 

it on the market in eastern Congo thus depressing the local prices 

of the only financial activity folks there do which is farm, taking 

the cash of which there was 42 cents on the dollar left, and giving 

it to a local NGO. 

40

It was the most—and granted it is one example, and I think on 

average monetization only makes something like 30 percent of the 

money just disappear, but this is an extreme example. But the fact 

that we were doing this struck me as totally ridiculous. And so that 

is just what monetization actually is and what it looks like. 

And maybe 50 years ago you were introducing that local community to American wheat such that you were creating an export market for the American food industry, the American farmers today 

would not want you to be doing that in eastern Congo. They would 

care more about those girls than they would that someday they are 

buying our wheat. 

On the money and the electronic transfers, rural Kenya is a good 

example. But they have an M-Pesa program where you literally 

text money by SMS text. You can, everyone, even the poorest 

households in the most rural, most difficult migratory part of that 

country have M-Pesa accounts and mobile phones. You can get 

them the resources very quickly. They can cash it in for food, and 

it just works. And then we have data from all over the world showing it works, it is secure, it is not wasted at all. And I think it is 

actually more efficient and more secure than trying to send food 

into northeast Kenya. 

And then on maritime employment I will let Dr. Barrett comment on it. But I will point out we did a very careful analysis. The 

ships in the program that are, they are literally called ‘‘military 

non-useful’’ ships that are just dependent on food aid. I actually 

had my team at USAID show me the photos of the ships. 

You should ask them for the photos, because all you have to do 

is look at them and you will say there is no way. If the American 

military depends on these ships to keep us safe and secure we have 

a larger challenge than food aid efficiency. And the number of 

mariners that are on the actual ships used that are in the non-militarily useful category, which are the highly dependent ones, is negligible. It is a very, very small number. It is in the tens. It is like 

70 or 80. 

And the maritime leaders I spoke to in the United States and 

around the world were more than willing to be flexible in order to 

create a more effective humanitarian picture. These are huge companies. They make $60 billion a year. The negative publicity of 

their position on these issues is probably more harmful to them 

than the $20–30 million of profit when you are making $60 billion 

a year. 

Ms. BASS. Mr. Chairman, can I ask just one more question? I 

think you were going to respond, Dr. Barrett, but before you do, Dr. 

Shah, you have made reference several times to the data. And it 

would be nice if we could see that in a couple of pages with some 

of those statistics highlighted. And it has just, really, all of this has 

been an incredible accomplishment during your tenure. 

Mr. BARRETT. Mr. Chairman, if I may. Congresswoman Bass, you 

ask really important questions. It is important to keep in mind 

that in 1996 the Congress enacted a new program, the Maritime 

Security Program, designed to ensure that militarily useful vessels 

were available to the Department of Defense for sealift capacity. So 

vessels that are militarily useful get $3.1 million per year as effectively a call option on vessel and crew. 

41

Very few of those vessels are mobilized, but they have been mobilized, for example, in the Gulf War. We have had a few in use in 

recent years as well. That provides the vehicle originally intended 

under cargo preference and ensures that only militarily useful vessels are being paid for their services and their crews. 

Now maritime employment is a slightly different issue from military readiness and sealift capacity. It is crucial to keep in mind 

that we have just run an experiment. In 2012, the Congress reduced the cargo preference provision from 75 percent to 50 percent, 

so we have just run an experiment in reducing cargo preference. 

What employment effect did it have in the maritime sector? Zero. 

Absolutely none. There are no documented vessels that came out 

of service because of a reduction in agricultural cargo preference 

coverage, no losses of mariner jobs or onshore jobs associated with 

maritime for our agricultural cargo preference. 

The reason is the Jones Act that regulates coastwise trade has 

a 38,000 vessel fleet. There are an enormous number of vessels plying American waters with mariners who handle cargoes just like 

those in agricultural cargo preference. That is a rapidly growing 

coastwise trade. It is a far larger source of employment. Agricultural cargo preference is a drop in the ocean for maritime employment. And having just run this experiment we know that it doesn’t 

actually have an impact. Thank you. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. We go to Randy Weber of Texas. 

Mr. WEBER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Shah, you said MPesa accounts in Kenya. M-P-e-s-a? 

Mr. SHAH. Yes, sir. 

Mr. WEBER. And that stands for? 

Mr. SHAH. I am not sure. That is a good question. The M, I 

think, is mobile, and Pesa must be reference to currency. 

Mr. BARRETT. Pesa is the Swahili word for money, and the M 

prefix in Swahili is for person. It literally means ‘‘moneyman.’’

Mr. WEBER. Okay, well, being from Texas I am used to peso, just 

not used to pesa. I guess that makes sense. How do you protect 

against fraud? You said it is secure and you said it is a good system, but these hackers and these internet thieves are very, very capable and very, very creative. How do you protect against that? 

Mr. SHAH. Well, I would just say the comparison is against shipping American food. And a truck filled with American food is a 

more vulnerable target and has been proven to be a more vulnerable target than an electronic transfer that goes through an MPesa system or an alternative system like that. 

Mr. WEBER. I guess that makes sense. And also it is a bit more 

protective of the personnel involved. It is hard to get somebody 

shooting at you through the internet. 

Okay, and we will go to Secretary Glickman. I represent the second largest rice producing district in Texas and rice is a commodity 

often used in U.S. food aid programs. Now these packets—and by 

the way, what was the second packet? 

[Audio malfunction in hearing room.] 

Mr. GLICKMAN. And then this, what was this here? 

Mr. SHAH. There are actually three products. One is the supplementary food which is the Plumpy’nut that I think is made in 

42

Rhode Island, one is the therapeutic version of it which is a much 

denser——

Mr. WEBER. Okay. 

Mr. SHAH [continuing]. More richer version of the same——

Mr. WEBER. Got you. You said that, okay. 

Mr. SHAH. This is a cracker that—a cookie that is also enhanced. 

Mr. WEBER. All right, thank you. Last week, Jamie Warshaw 

with USA Rice testified before my counterparts on the Agricultural 

Committee regarding the strong amount of good that comes with 

a bag of rice that is raised from the American people. Now if I understand correctly, you just said you would believe that in 10 years 

no more grain is being shipped over there. 

Secretary Glickman, as Secretary of the Agriculture you were directly behind much of the international food aid contributions. You 

believe that that got us goodwill. So large bag of grain or rice or 

whatever, is there a mix here? Do you think this gets us as much 

goodwill? What is your take on it? 

Mr. GLICKMAN. I think there is a mix. I don’t think we are going 

to eliminate in-kind assistance for everywhere in the world. There 

is just too much stuff that has been in the politics lately, but there 

is too much stuff happening. 

Mr. WEBER. Forgive the pun. There is too much stuff that has 

been ingrained? 

Mr. GLICKMAN. That are ingrained. No, there is too many things 

happening with respect—I was thinking about if the South Carolina tragic flooding had happened, which it has happened, in Taiwan or in South Korea or in Central America, we just had this 

problem in Guatemala last week with massive floods, we would be 

shipping some in-kind assistance. There is just no question about 

it. 

So, it is a mix and it requires flexibility, it requires judgment. 

And yes, I think it probably helps the U.S. to have that physical 

commodity go there, but that is not the prime reason we ought to 

be doing it. Because you also will get the similar benefit on the 

products that you are seeing there because they will say product, 

or help from the American people or USAID or whatever. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay. And then, finally, with the development of 

food aid programs targeting the most poor and chronically hungry 

communities, and having impressive results shown by the USAIDcommissioned second Food Aid and Food Security Assessment and 

important linkages with Feed the Future, we want to be careful not 

to lose such unique programs and tools that have been become vital 

and effective within the range of our global food security strategy. 

So I know we have tremendous pressures to respond to significant humanitarian crises, but with development program waiver 

language in Section 300 of Senate Bill 525’s food aid reform bill, 

have we reached the point where we need to allow the USAID to 

waive those fragile developmental gains of the Title II development 

programs to create those more emergency response programs? Do 

we need to change that? Any of you. 

Mr. BARRETT. If I may, absolutely, Congressman Weber. It is im- portant to keep in mind it costs about $125 for treating children’s 

severe acute malnutrition with the sorts of products that Dr. Shah 

has shown——

43

Mr. WEBER. 125 per——

Mr. BARRETT. Per child life-year saved. 

Mr. WEBER. Per year? 

Mr. BARRETT. Per year. So that is a relatively modest investment. You compare that against the cost of delivering grain from, 

purchased in the United States, we are talking something on the 

order of 11 or 12 children’s lives per shipment, just the excess cost 

of shipments. And keep in mind that providing the Secretary of Agriculture and the USAID Administrator with flexibility, it doesn’t 

say U.S. agriculture won’t participate. 

We are the most productive agricultural economy in the world. 

We are the world’s largest agricultural exporter. The rice farmers 

in your district, sir, will continue to ship rice to these very places, 

providing in many cases the rice that will be bought locally because 

they are the most efficient farmers in the world right now. 

The key thing is being able to buy the best quality product at the 

best price at the time it is most needed, and American agriculture 

and American food producers, manufacturers, millers, can play a 

very valuable role in that with no impediment whatsoever. And for 

just $125 per child life-year we will get a much better product for 

the productivity of American industry and agriculture. To me it is 

a no-brainer, sir. 

Mr. WEBER. Okay, thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman ROYCE. The Chair thanks the gentleman. The Chair 

recognizes Mr. Cicilline. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank 

you, Chairman Royce and Ranking Member Engel, for this really 

important hearing on an issue that is, literally, a question of life 

and death. I think there is nothing more important in our humanitarian assistance than food because without proper access to food 

and nutrition children cannot live and attend school, men and 

women can’t work, mothers can’t take care of their children. And 

that is why I am very proud that the United States is the biggest 

supplier of food aid in the world. And I appreciate this hearing that 

will draw attention to ways that we can improve and streamline 

the food aid process and make it even more effective and impactful. 

I just want to take 1 minute to recognize the work of a wonderful 

nonprofit based in my district in Rhode Island that does so much 

work in this area of food aid and global nutrition. Dr. Shah was 

raising Plumpy’nut, which is produced by Edesia Global Nutrition 

Solutions, a really innovative and targeted approach to ensuring 

that populations around the world have access to healthy nutritional food by producing ready-to-use therapeutic and supplementary foods through large humanitarian organizations such as 

UNICEF, the World Food Program, and USAID. 

This organization has demonstrated incredible leadership in 

tackling the issue of international food aid and I applaud them and 

particularly their founder Navyn Salem for their extraordinary 

work. And Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to enter into 

the record the statement of Edesia which is based in the first congressional district of Rhode Island. And I will pass that along. 

Chairman ROYCE. Without objection. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you. 

44

I want to thank the witnesses for your extraordinary work in this 

area and for your testimony, and ask, I just really have three questions and open it up first to Dr. Shah. I know that in response to 

the Syrian humanitarian crisis the Emergency Food Security Program has allowed the use of cash resources, and I wonder if you 

could speak a little bit about the experience in Syria and why that 

has been important and what the benefits are in responding to 

emergencies like Syria. 

One of the questions that some of the opponents of these reforms 

have raised, as my colleague Congresswoman Bass has mentioned, 

is about the nutritional value. How do we ensure that the food is 

meeting certain nutritional standards and maybe what we can do 

to ensure that that happens? 

And then finally, the most important question for me is, as you 

listen to the testimony and you study this issue it seems really obvious that these reforms are necessary to make our aid work more 

effectively and to reach more people who are needing this nutrition 

and food. And it seems as if, according to the testimony today it 

is supported by the maritime industry, it is really supported by 

most farmers. Why hasn’t it happened? What do you see as the obstacles and what can we do to overcome those obstacles, because 

it makes so much sense to me. And I know Mr. Glickman will have 

some insight on that as well. 

Mr. GLICKMAN. Some of this is just historical. As I pointed out 

before, we have grown up with the physical observation of giving 

things overseas and it has been part of our culture. And I think 

it was based on, as I said, the nature of agriculture, although I 

think the farm community always had a strong humanitarian core 

to it in addition to the need to relieve themselves of the surpluses 

that they have had. 

But I do think that more education is needed on this because the 

facts are really clear: We need more flexibility. It doesn’t have to 

be 100 percent, but we need to move like what you have done already, from 25 to 50 percent or whatever the number that you 

would come up with. I think we would save a lot of lives. 

Second of all, nutrition, as Dr. Shah’s organization has done so 

much in this. Raw commodities are not necessarily nutritional salvation. We are learning a lot more about nutrition and vitamin 

content and nutrients to not only to build lives but to prevent disease, particularly non-communicable diseases. 

And so we are going to have a lot of technology in the future with 

private sector groups like the ones in your district and others to 

amplify what we are already sending and most of that is not going 

to be in bags of food. But I just think we need more and better education——

Mr. CICILLINE. Education. 

Mr. GLICKMAN [continuing]. As we are talking about these issues. 

Mr. SHAH. I just want to build on Dan’s point, because I think 

within the traditional three stakeholder groups, agriculture, shipping, and NGO, there is mainstream support for reform in each of 

those groups. There has been a history of categorizing those groups 

together though and saying the shippers think X or the NGOs 

think Y. 

45

And the reality is, in each of those categories there are one or 

two parts of the stakeholder community that would rather not see 

reform and are promulgating the concept that the program will 

somehow fall apart if its focus shifts from essentially requirements 

on behalf of agricultural and shipping interests to results and evidence on behalf of what saves the most lives most efficiently. 

And the only response to that I would say is, if you look at every 

other country that has made this shift over the last 50 years their 

level of commitment has not gone down, it has gone up. And even 

in tough environments, even in just the last decade, countries like 

the United Kingdom have managed under a conservative government to significantly increase their investments in these kinds of 

activities motivated more by the idea that they are getting efficiency and results and outcomes than by the idea that they are 

somehow protecting or taking care of a domestic stakeholder group 

and constituency. Because as Dan points out, mathematically the 

program no longer really meaningfully supports those constituencies on a financial basis. So that hopefully is helpful. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Rev. BECKMANN. May I just add, I think there is real concern 

that food aid programs have been sustained by a particular set of 

partly self-interested actors for all these decades, and so if you take 

the self-interest out of it that maybe the funding for food aid will 

drop. 

So, in fact, I think say for rice growers the real self-interest stake 

at this point is that between 1990 and today the number of people 

in extreme poverty has dropped in half. And those people are now 

eating, and a lot of those people are eating rice. So somehow within 

the ag community especially we need to make the shift to help—

the real stake, the real self-interest stake of U.S. agriculture is 

that people get out of hunger and be able to buy food, and then not 

just raw commodities but also ideas and knowledge about how to 

do it right. 

And then I think what is important about that is not only funding for food aid, it is funding for all of our, everything we do to help 

reduce poverty around the world. There is just deep cynicism still 

among the American people. People don’t know that the world has 

made progress against poverty. I think only 10 percent of American 

voters know that. And then if you ask a typical voter how much 

of our aid, our foreign aid really gets to the people it is supposed 

to get to, something like 10 percent think that, oh, yes, it really 

gets to the people who need it. They support it anyway. 

So it is really crucial that you reform food aid partly because of 

that broader constituency, because this is really a scandal and it 

has to be fixed or it undercuts support not just for food aid but for 

everything that our country is doing to support progress against 

hunger and poverty around the world. 

Mr. PERRY [presiding]. Thank you, Reverend. The Chair also 

thanks the representative from Rhode Island. The Chair now turns 

to himself for some questions. Dr. Barrett, in determining fair and 

reasonable rates, MARAD allows for a 19-percent profit margin for 

U.S. ships moving food aid but only a 9-percent margin for ships 

moving DoD cargoes. Given the humanitarian mandate of Food for 

46

Peace does this seem fair and reasonable? Just if you can talk us 

through that. 

Mr. BARRETT. I run an undergraduate business school, the Dyson 

school at Cornell. If I offered my students the opportunity to make 

a guaranteed 19 percent return on all their activities I don’t think 

we need to teach them a whole lot. Just let them sign up and take 

the option. That is an extraordinarily high guaranteed rate of return. Because keep in mind, this is a reimbursement-plus margin 

contract that is on offer. And the fact that it is a higher rate of return guaranteed on humanitarian shipments than it is on military 

shipments begs the question of why would we offer a 10-percent 

profit premium because you are helping out people who are starving? It sort of defies logic and it is clearly an anti-competitive practice. 

Again I run a business school. I am a big believer in the virtue 

of competition and private enterprise. And what we really need to 

see is that the shipping lines that are able to provide very cost effective freight delivery services over long distances—the mariners 

who do these activities are very brave souls, tragically we just saw 

a vessel lost during Hurricane Joaquin. These are not jobs to be 

taken lightly. These are not tasks that are unimportant. But the 

question is why are we guaranteeing an extraordinarily high profit 

margin when this is a highly competitive industry? Let the vessels 

compete, and let’s let the commercial producers who now also need 

those same ocean freight services get access to the same vessels 

without having to see them diverted from time to time because 

there are these windfall profit opportunities associated with the 

MARAD rules on mark up. 

Mr. PERRY. So in keeping with that, a study by AEI has found 

that U.S. shipping companies are charging higher rates for U.S. 

food aid cargoes than other commercial cargoes carried on the very 

same vessels. Any idea how this cost discrepancy can be accounted 

for? 

Mr. BARRETT. The economics of it are rather simple, sir. When 

you don’t have competition the provider can mark up the price. 

Commercial cargoes are highly competitive. It is a very competitive 

market out there. That is one reason why——

Mr. PERRY. So there is nothing special with carrying food that 

would justify the increased cost for the sake of itself? 

Mr. BARRETT. No, it is——

Mr. PERRY. In your opinion. 

Mr. BARRETT. The same vessels are carrying agricultural commodities commercially and they are just charging less when they 

are carrying them commercially because the market won’t sustain 

the inflated price associated with the cargo preference. The protections drive up the price. It is monopoly pricing. 

Mr. PERRY. Okay. Dr. Shah, the farm bill, the 2014 farm bill provided some cash flexibility, and you also have the Emergency Food 

Security fund. Can you explain why you are pressing for more flexibility? Has not enough been provided at this point? 

Mr. SHAH. No, not enough has been provided. And if you look at 

what the farm bill did, and I was very, very grateful for the 

progress made in the farm bill, it took the part of the food aid account that goes to administration but also to results monitoring 

47

and measurement data and analytics, and took that from 13 percent to 20 percent and then made that more flexible such that that 

could be used for the kinds of things we are talking about on this 

panel. Cash transfers, vouchers, medical foods, et cetera. 

So in practice it was a 7-percent on the total volume of additional 

flexibility, which isn’t a big gain but it is 7 percent. I mean, it 

should be 50 percent or 60 percent or something like that if we are 

going to get serious about reform. 

Mr. PERRY. So just to codify the argument, it is a move in the 

right direction but just way too small from the perspective of what 

absolutely needs to be done and what actually needs to be done. 

Mr. SHAH. Exactly. 

Mr. PERRY. Okay, thank you. The Chair now turns to the representative from California, Mr. Bera. Dr. Bera. 

Mr. BERA. Thank you, Chair. Yes, it is good to see Dr. Shah back 

in here, Secretary Glickman, and all the witnesses. Obviously an 

incredibly important topic as we reflect our values as Americans 

wanting to relieve suffering around the world. Would it be accurate 

to say the goal of this program and Food for Peace primarily is to 

relieve that suffering, relieve suffering from hunger, starvation, 

and food insecurity? Is that an accurate assessment? 

[Nonverbal response.] 

Mr. BERA. That that should be our driving goal. So in that context, when we look at using the taxpayers’ resources, we should 

evaluate that in the context of how do we best use those resources 

to achieve that goal; is that fair? 

[Nonverbal response.] 

So in that context, Dr. Barrett, I think you suggested that for 

every dollar we are spending about 35 to 40 cents that goes to 

achieve that goal, compared to comparative economies like Canada 

where it is 70 cents per goal? 

[Nonverbal response.] 

So we are not doing a very good job in using our resources to 

achieve what the driving goal is. Is it accurate that potentially a 

secondary goal is, within U.S. industries, within the agricultural 

sector, within the maritime sector, to help stabilize those industries, was that a secondary goal in the original design or was that 

just—I guess Secretary Glickman. 

Mr. GLICKMAN. Well, certainly, 1 secondary goal in the agriculture sector was relieve the U.S. from massive surpluses which 

kept prices low. I can’t speak as much to the maritime, but my 

guess is that there were similar pressures there as well a long time 

ago. 

Mr. BERA. But again, that may have been a secondary goal in the 

original design of the program back in the 1950s. I guess, Secretary 

Glickman, if we allowed some flexibility in the program today to 

change from just shipping commodities to perhaps purchasing product in-country or shipping higher nutritional commodities, how 

would that affect the agricultural sector today? 

Mr. GLICKMAN. In terms of net income on reduced, let’s say inkind shipments it would be negligible. It would be virtually insignificant. Now there are a few things that we have seen some increase in in-kind assistance. I think grain sorghum we have seen 

some increase on the purchase for humanitarian assistance. And I 

48

mention these pulse crops which are largely lentils, they are still 

very, very small. But in terms of the major U.S. commodities, 

wheat, corn, soybeans, it would have virtually no impact at all. 

Mr. BERA. And Dr. Barrett, on maritime security, on maritime 

employment would it have much impact? 

Mr. BARRETT. Zero. And let me also just echo in the agricultural 

sector growth, small specialty crop sales into the food aid system 

is being driven largely by needs assessments in countries that are 

calling for commodities that are more suited to that population and 

naturally eat sorghum, et cetera. The income effects on American 

growers are zero. Same effects for maritime employment, sir. 

Mr. BERA. Okay. So in that context the secondary goal, really, 

again we should be making our decisions as Members of Congress, 

and I think the taxpayers would expect us to make those decisions 

for that primary goal of relieving suffering, using our resources in 

the most efficient way to relieve suffering around the world. 

Even if there was a secondary goal of U.S. employment, Dr. 

Shah, I think in your earlier answers suggested there would be a 

better way to use resources and manufacture products, some of 

these highly nutritional products that can help relieve suffering in 

a more efficient way; is that accurate? 

Mr. SHAH. Yes, absolutely. In fact, we did a study when I was 

at USAID with Tufts University that demonstrated the nutritional 

frontier here, and there is plenty of room for new products that are 

both peanut based, rice based, U.S. commodity based, but nutritionally enhanced and prepared. And as I have noted, 10 years 

from now it should all be, the program should be advanced manufactured foods, and we have seen a track record of creating U.S. 

jobs here as a result of that opportunity. 

Mr. BERA. Fabulous. And I would imagine there is a secondary, 

because if we are shipping direct commodities I imagine there are 

some costs to loss of food for spoilage and certainly the cost of storage as well in-country, as well as the shipping costs that products 

like these highly nutritious products are probably easier to ship 

and certainly easier to store, and spoilage is less of a factor. That 

is probably pretty accurate. 

Just in my short time left, I think, Dr. Barrett, you quoted a 

number, $125 per child-years saved. If you could just expand on 

that. 

Mr. BARRETT. Sure. That figure, that estimate comes out of a recent study published in the journal Lancet, a leading global public 

health journal, where a collection of leading scholars looked at the 

cost effectiveness of different interventions for public health. And 

child acute malnutrition is commonly identified as the single most 

cost effective intervention we can make in the world. 

The Copenhagen Consensus, for example, in assessing a wide 

range of prospective global interventions identified addressing child 

nutrition, in particular severe acute malnutrition, as the highest 

benefit-cost ratio investment available to the global community. So 

it is at $125 per child life-year saved. That is the cost per child lifeyear saved. So for a newborn with a 70-year life expectancy, multiplied by 70 we are talking something like $8,000 for a child to live 

a full, healthy life. 

49

Mr. BERA. Mr. Chairman, if you would indulge me. Dr. Shah, 

within that $125 would it be more efficient for us to spend those 

resources on these highly nutritious products? 

Mr. SHAH. Absolutely. Absolutely. In fact, it is important to recognize that the sort of bulk grain feeding approach was never designed as a targeted solution for child malnutrition. It was designed for exactly what it was, getting rid of American commodities 

and in places that were commodity-scarce having some food, because it seems logical that food helps saves lives during a famine. 

Mr. GLICKMAN. I just want to make one other point. This is for 

agriculture. A lot of these programs grew in recent years in large 

part because of bipartisan support of two farm-state Senators, Bob 

Dole and George McGovern. I am sure there were some foundation 

for getting rid of surpluses, but most of this is because of the nutritional efforts of the program. And so I don’t want people to think 

that agriculture is just interested in moving commodities, it has got 

a long history on the humanitarian side as well. 

Mr. BERA. Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. PERRY. The Chair thanks the gentleman. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Connolly. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you and welcome to our panelists. 

My first job here in Washington was to be the executive director 

of the American Freedom from Hunger Foundation, and I spent 10 

years doing that before I went to graduate school. And during that 

time, Reverend Beckmann, by the way, worked with Arthur Simon 

in the founding of Bread for the World. I didn’t found it, he did, 

but I provided some counsel and assistance in how to set up that 

nonprofit. I also worked with Paul Simon. When he was lieutenant 

governor of Illinois I wrote the introduction to one of his books on 

the politics of hunger. So this topic is near and dear to me. 

Candidly, Dr. Shah, what you just said about the founding of the 

program and the purpose of the commodities, I think, is at variance 

with Secretary Glickman just said. And I am old enough to remember George McGovern and Bob Dole and most certainly there was 

a nutritional aspect to the program. I am old. And I think we are 

being a little facile in just dismissing the commodities aspect of 

this program, and I think we are being more than a little facile, 

with all due respect, to the politics up here of continued support 

for these kinds of interventions and efforts. 

Can one really imagine a Bob Dole and a George McGovern coming together in this Congress to support the new food aid program? 

Really? 

Mr. GLICKMAN. I would do it. I can’t tell you——

Mr. CONNOLLY. Who would do it? 

Mr. GLICKMAN. I think Bob Dole and George McGovern——

Mr. CONNOLLY. They aren’t here anymore. 

Mr. GLICKMAN. No, I know. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I am talking about this Congress. Can we imagine a Bob Dole, a George McGovern coming together and saying, 

yes, let’s fund this. Let’s decommoditize it and fund it because it 

is the right thing to do. I am skeptical. I am concerned. I helped 

write the last foreign aid authorization bill passed by a Congress. 

That was in 1986, Dr. Shah. We have not passed a foreign aid auVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:58 Nov 25, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00053 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\100715\96906 SHIRL
50

thorization bill since 1986. There is a reason. It certainly isn’t the 

popularity of foreign aid. 

So I am just concerned. I don’t have a dog in the fight. I don’t 

represent an agricultural area. The last dairy farm in Fairfax 

County is Frying Pan Park where we take kids to see what a cow 

looks like. We used to be the largest dairy producing county in Virginia. So I don’t have shipping interests. I don’t have agricultural 

interests. I am actually concerned about trying to make sure we 

are the most efficient and we are helping the largest number of 

people. 

Reverend Beckmann, you pointed out about the fact that we actually have some success stories in lifting people out of poverty. 

And I agree with you, although I would suggest that the largest 

single example, certainly in my lifetime and in human history, is 

in China and it is not because of foreign aid. It is because of policy 

reform that lifted the largest single number of people out of poverty 

in the history of humanity and in the briefest most condensed time 

frame, which is a sobering thought. 

It wasn’t because of foreign aid or AID or any of the U.N. agencies. Not that they are irrelevant, but that is not what happened 

in China. And yes, they now have purchasing power. I remember 

in the ’50s there was a famine in China. No one would think about 

a famine in China today. That is how much the world has changed 

in a relatively brief period of time. 

So at any rate you are welcome to comment. I would start with 

Secretary Glickman because you come from up here, you were part 

of those wars, you were Secretary of Agriculture. Just how easy 

will it be, do you think, to put together a coalition that will readily 

support this kind of intervention long term in terms of appropriating dollars? 

Mr. GLICKMAN. Not easy, but not impossible. You all did it in the 

last farm bill. You made changes. You made the programs more 

flexible. There was opposition, you negotiated the percentages and 

what you were going to be doing. These are not the kind of changes 

that have to gridlock a congress, to be honest with you. And right 

and left there is history of bipartisanship in feeding the hungry 

and dealing with the problems of poor and poverty around the 

world, as you know, that I think that you can do it. I also don’t 

think it takes huge amounts of additional funding. We don’t have 

that. We know that. 

So I don’t think you are talking about an impossible task, to be 

honest with you. And I think your history shows there is reason 

to believe that you can work together on this. The other thing I 

would tell you is Dr. Shah, I am just going to stroke him for a moment. He is out of this job. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. If I may interrupt. 

Mr. GLICKMAN. Yes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Don’t make a straw man. No one talked about it 

being an impossible task. What I said was I think we are being a 

little too facile about the struggle we will face in this Congress. 

Mr. GLICKMAN. Yes, well, straw is an agricultural commodity so 

I can say that as well. I think the fact that you showed that you 

can make some progress before, just in the last few years, means 

you can make more progress. And also the nature of the conflicts 

51

now, they dwarf the conflicts of the last 20 or 30 years. Not the 

Second World War necessarily, but they are just everywhere. The 

levels are higher, the problems are much greater. So I think you 

have got a chance here to really do something good. That would be 

my—I didn’t get a chance to——

Mr. CONNOLLY. From your lips to God’s ears. Dr. Shah. 

Mr. SHAH. Representative Connolly, if I could just add a few 

thoughts. First is I would in no way contradict Dan. I agree with 

not only everything he said, my comment about the nutritional 

focus there is no question the agricultural community has supported these programs with the desire to have significant nutritional impact. 

I have been with committee members from the agricultural committees as we have traveled in settings, and the passion is extraordinary and it is about saving those children’s lives. The point I 

wanted to make was that the science about how to do that has 

evolved such that actually there is more, we know so much more 

today about how to save those lives effectively and efficiently and 

it is different from the strategies we used to deploy even 10, 15 

years ago. And that is all I meant to imply by that. 

The second answer on the politics is I had this experience as I 

learned and met many of the leaders in the shipping community 

and the agricultural community. But the shipping community in 

particular, I just believe there has been a mismatch of understanding that this program is not going to be able to sustain itself 

as a major source of revenue for shippers over the course of the 

next decade because of natural transitions in what is happening in 

the program. The volume of food is coming down. The replacement 

of grains with more targeted foods that are just denser and lighter 

in aggregate and cheaper to ship in aggregate. 

And so the structure of the program is already changing, and 

that is already impacting these constituencies. So I do think the 

time is now to have an open and partnership oriented discussion. 

We had structured, maybe about a year ago, some compromise 

ideas that landed in a place where there was significant additional 

flexibility, 2 million to 3 million more people reached and lives 

saved. 

A role for shippers but not in the current context, not the same 

as today’s deal, and a focus on bringing some agricultural partners 

into this more advanced food picture by creating rice and legume 

based products as opposed to just peanut based products that are 

more targeted and more effective. So there is a way to design the 

future that builds on the politics of the past and I believe there is 

an opportunity to do it now. 

Rev. BECKMANN. Well, I didn’t know about your help in starting 

Bread for the World so thank you for that. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. No, no. I just provided advice. 

Rev. BECKMANN. No, I appreciate it. I am encouraged, actually, 

by the degree of bipartisanship that we have seen on international 

aid issues. You are in the fray so you may not feel it, but it is really extraordinary that during the Bush administration, the Obama 

administration that we have had real improvements and expansion 

of the programs that are focused on poverty, hunger, and disease. 

And it has been done in a bipartisan way with some authorizing 

52

legislation, and then steady and pretty rapid increases in appropriations for the programs that are focused on poverty, hunger, and 

disease. 

And those increases have continued since 2011, and I think it is 

partly because that our aid programs have worked. People have 

seen that PEPFAR has dramatically improved the situation in relationship to the global AIDS pandemic. And people can see that Africa, half of Africa is doing remarkably well. But some of that is 

because of policy reform, but it was also supported by the Millennium Challenge Corporation and IDA and other things that have 

been supported by this committee. So I think in a certain way we 

are in a really encouraging situation, and getting the reform of food 

aid done is really important to sustaining American confidence in 

all of these efforts to participate in what the world is doing to reduce poverty, hunger and disease. 

When I talk to church groups across the country, and I was in 

Wichita yesterday. There are a lot of Republicans in Wichita. I talk 

about food aid reform in Wichita. I start on that because everybody 

is shaking their heads that last year Congress got some additional 

food aid reform, enough to give food aid to 11⁄2 million more of the 

world’s poorest people last year at no cost to U.S. taxpayers. Folks 

in Wichita liked that a lot. And so I think getting this done is really important to a continued bipartisan collaboration on some of the 

things that this committee has provided leadership for. 

Mr. PERRY. Thank you, Reverend. Mr. Connolly, and thank you. 

The Chair recognizes now Mr. Sherman from California. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you. I begin by pointing out that I have no 

farms in my district. I have no ports in my district. I do have oranges growing in my state, but I am not sure that oranges are part 

of our food aid program. I do not have a dog in this fight. I do not 

have an orange in this fight. 

But I am convinced that if we simply abolish the Food for Peace 

program, and let’s face it, turning it into the money for peace program means that it is simply a Xerox of several of our other foreign 

aid programs, that we are going to have less total expenditures on 

aid in the future. That if you abandon the interests that have been 

pushing for this program and say we are not with you, they will 

not be with us. 

Mr. Glickman, you know a little something about Congress, a little something about agriculture. Could you imagine the ag approps 

subcommittee just declaring that their total allotment should be reduced and that money transferred to the subcommittee on foreign 

operation? 

Mr. GLICKMAN. Probably not. But let me just say this. I am not 

advocating turning the Food for Peace program into the money for 

peace program, period. 

Mr. SHERMAN. No, I just wanted that——

Mr. GLICKMAN. But all we are talking about is flexibility so you 

can move money and commodities around a little more. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Okay, as to flexibility the State Department has 

come into this room on many occasions and they have shown an incredible hostility, if anything, to American jobs, to the idea that 

anything purchased in America relates to jobs. They have testified 

that there is no connection between our trade deficit and employVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:58 Nov 25, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00056 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\100715\96906 SHIRL
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ment. And they certainly act that way, and if you wonder whether 

that is true, just look at the fact that we have the largest trade deficit in the history of a million years. 

So giving them flexibility is pretty much the same thing if you 

give them a lot of flexibility. Do you think that if the State Department is given the authority to turn the Food for Peace program 

into basically a money for peace program, Dr. Shah, do you think 

that the shippers, agriculture, will continue to support the program? 

Mr. SHAH. The bill that passed or the bill that came very close 

to passing here, I guess 2 years ago now, called for a 50-percent 

commodity, 50 percent flexibility oriented approach. That strikes 

me as about right in terms of the range of both what is politically 

possible and what would dramatically enhance the quality of outcomes. It would allow you to have commodities used and deployed 

where they are valued and needed and play a role, and it would 

allow you to use the flexible resources to do the targeted feeding, 

lifesaving activities, fast and efficient activities. And in that context, I believe the shipping community together with the agricultural community together with the NGO community could support 

that type of package of flexible-plus commodity. 

Mr. SHERMAN. We clearly need some flexibility and the exact 

number that would keep the alliance together while providing the 

most efficient aid. There is another part of our aid. Obviously we 

want to feed people, but it is also sold to the American people as 

a for-peace program, which basically means it is not just for humanitarian reasons. It is to enhance the image of the United 

States. 

When we buy food locally that is less of a statement to the recipients that this food is really from America. What is done to make 

sure that we have the same, Dr. Shah, impact on the recipients 

and on the press covering it and on the whole world? I mean, we 

have done nothing as successful in the Islamic world than our aid 

after typhoons that hit Indonesia and Malaysia. So what can we do 

with the buying food locally and still have that impact? Dr. Shah? 

Mr. SHAH. Well, I would just point out that in Haiti, in Tacloban 

and the Philippines, in Syria today, in Jordan and Lebanon, whenever we use flexible resources they come in the form of a branded 

voucher or a branded biometric ID card that a family will hold in 

their pocket, will tell you it is saving their family and their society 

at a critical time, and is emblazoned with the USAID logo and the 

phrase ‘‘From the American People’’ usually written in the local 

language. And they take extraordinary pride in that. 

So I think we have seen in all of these settings that you can have 

a flexible assistance program that is cognizant of the importance of 

projecting America’s values, and people react very, very favorably 

to that. 

Mr. SHERMAN. So some of us are old-fashioned enough to think 

a flag on the bag, in this century it is flag on the card. Okay, I 

yield back. 

Mr. PERRY. And just for the record, as I understand it, right, this 

is the bag we are talking about? 

Mr. SHERMAN. Okay. 

54

Mr. PERRY. The Chair thanks the gentleman. The Chair now 

thanks the gentleman from New York, Mr. Engel. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to ask Reverend Beckmann one last question. So the statistics show that we 

can feed between 2 million and 6 million more people in need with 

simple common sense reforms, but like everything else special interests get in the way, people looking at how it affects some of 

these interests. 

So as the CEO of Bread for the World, how do you build—you 

touched on it but I would like you to expand on it—how do you 

build public and political will to reform our international food aid 

system? 

Rev. BECKMANN. I think this is a really good issue to build public 

and political will for our foreign assistance generally, because I 

mean just within Bread for the World it is clear to our constituency 

that we fight just as hard to make these programs effective as we 

do to get more money. And across the political spectrum the demonstrated concern about effectiveness and efficiency and not just 

trying to get more money for poor people but protecting taxpayer 

dollars in that process, I just know that that builds support. Not 

only for the food aid program but for everything that our Government is doing to support what the world is doing to reduce poverty 

and hunger. 

I thought Mr. Sherman’s point about the agriculture support is 

important. We need to, not necessarily, but all of us, I think, need 

to be cognizant of the agricultural community’s strong support for 

food aid over many decades. Really at this point their self-interest 

is not the food aid, their self-interest is reducing hunger. When in 

the 1990s when East Asia had a big improvement, lots of people 

got out of poverty. That was great for U.S. agriculture. 

In the same way as Africa comes out, as people come out of hunger and poverty that means—poor people typically spend two-thirds 

of their total income on a couple plates of food a day. So some of 

the increased food that people are able to buy, the more variety, 

some of that will come from the U.S. and especially like breeder 

stock and technology behind the expanded production of food. 

So U.S. agriculture has a real and enduring self-interest reason 

for being in alliance with hungry people around the world, and it 

is really important that as we make this transition that we maintain that. So in practical terms it is going to mean compromises 

and doing this step-by-step, probably. And I don’t know about the 

shippers. I am not sure we can keep them with us. But agriculture, 

they have a real stake in this. 

And then on top of it most of the farmers and people in farm 

states I know, they are conservative, church-going people. If you 

tell them that this is a way to save money on a government program and then reach more of the world’s most desperate people 

with food they are for it. 

Mr. BARRETT. If I may, Congressman Engel. There may be a lesson to be learned in the Canadian experience of reforming their 

food aid programs 10 years ago. Canada, like the United States, 

ran a surplus disposal program. Like the United States they had 

price support programs that absorbed surpluses generated by Canadian farmers then shipped them overseas as food aid. 

55

And then the Indian Ocean tsunami hit right after Christmas in 

2004, and the Canadian law prescribed that Canada could only 

send up to 10 percent of its food aid through cash-based assistance. 

Ninety percent of the budget had to be commodities procured in 

Canada. The Indian Ocean tsunami hit rice-eating communities. 

There is not a lot of rice grown in Canada. 

So the Canadian farm community, note the farm community, led 

by the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, was so embarrassed by the Canadian food aid program’s restrictions that the Canadians could not 

respond to populations in desperate need of food because they ran 

out of their budget in the first 2 weeks, that immediately, within 

the year, the Canadian Parliament changed Canadian food aid law. 

It went from 90 percent by Canada shipped from Canada to 50 percent within the year. 

We shouldn’t have to wait for the same sort of tragic event. The 

farm community cares about food. It cares about people eating a 

nutritious diet. And these restrictions inhibit our ability as the 

world’s most productive agricultural economy to advance that 

shared goal. This should be doable. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you. Thank you very much. 

Mr. PERRY. The Chair thanks the gentleman. We also thank the 

witnesses for their time and insightful testimony. It is clear that 

in a time of unprecedented need we need to do whatever we can 

to make our food aid programs as efficient and as effective as possible. You have all clearly laid out the challenges and opportunities 

lying ahead of us and we thank you for that. With that this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:10 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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A P P E N D I X 

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