Last week, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced that they will spend $1 billion from the Commodity Credit Corporation to purchase U.S.-grown commodities to provide emergency food assistance to people in need throughout the world.
The money is part of an agreement that Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced in October after Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and ranking member Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., asked USDA to use the CCC, USDA’s line $30 billion per year line of credit at the Treasury, to increase export promotion and international food aid.
USDA said in a news release, “An initial tranche of approximately $950 million will support the purchase, shipment and distribution of U.S. wheat, rice, sorghum, lentils, chickpeas, dry peas, vegetable oil, cornmeal, navy beans, pinto beans and kidney beans — commodities that align with traditional USAID international food assistance programming.”
USAID is the lead federal coordinator on food aid and has selected 18 countries for the initial round of support:
Bangladesh
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Chad
Democratic Republic of Congo
Djibouti
Ethiopia
Haiti
Kenya
Madagascar
Mali
Nigeria
Rwanda
South Sudan
Sudan
Tanzania
Uganda
Yemen
“It is clear that our country must do everything we can to meet humanitarian needs around the world, and American farmers are up to the task. I applaud Secretary Vilsack and the teams at USDA and USAID for working with me to find creative solutions that meet the needs of this critical moment,” Stabenow said.
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