In The Arena 2 Million Will Go Hungry If Congress Has Its Way

Peter McPherson was USAID administrator under President Reagan and is currently chairman of the board of directors of the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa.

In the coming weeks, Senators on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will have a choice to make: Give a $75 million subsidy to the maritime shipping industry, or ensure that several million people in impoverished and war-torn countries have food to eat.

At issue is how the Senate will address a provision quietly tucked into the House-approved version of the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act. The obscure provision would raise the percentage of U.S. food aid that is required to be transported on privately owned, U.S.-flagged commercial vessels from 50 to 75 percent. This would effectively deny 2 million people in countries like Haiti, South Sudan and the Central African Republic access to lifesaving U.S. food assistance.


As a former agriculture secretary for President Bill Clinton and a former USAID administrator for President Ronald Reagan, we’ve seen firsthand the effectiveness of U.S. food aid while also witnessing the inefficiencies of its delivery.

The truth is, it costs dramatically more to ship food on U.S.-flagged vessels than on vessels otherwise available. According to the USAID, the change would add $75 million to ocean shipping costs. This increase would, in turn, reduce the amount of U.S. food aid going to hungry people, which is precisely why Congress lowered the “cargo preference” to 50 percent just two years ago.

Proponents of cargo preference requirements argue that increasing the percentage to 75 percent would support “military readiness” by providing more subsides to a domestic fleet of U.S.-flagged cargo vessels. That position, however, is not supported by the facts.

The Defense Department rejected that argument in a letter to Congress last year, asserting that the subsidized vessels in question are not useful to the military. In fact, many of these ships are old, inefficient and ill suited to carry thousands of tons of food aid thousands of miles around the world. The Department of Homeland Security agreed, and multiple evaluations from the Government Accountability Office have found cargo preference requirements to be ineffective.

While defense is a false rationale for increasing cargo preference subsidies, the irony is that food aid does indeed play an important role in our national security. Security assessments by Republican and Democratic administrations agree that threats will come from fragile and failing states, and that food aid plays an important role, alongside defense and diplomacy and other efforts, in dealing with such instability.

Food aid allows the United States to provide life-saving assistance in the aftermath of emergencies like Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, the landslide in Afghanistan and the earthquake in Haiti, sustaining communities through disaster. American food aid also helps prevent militants and terrorist groups from taking advantage of distress.

During the last two years, Congress and the Obama administration have worked hard to make food aid more efficient by reducing cargo preference and further increasing the cost-effectiveness of delivering food aid by pre-positioning food near fragile and disaster-prone places. Overall, these changes have put life-saving, nutritious food in the hands of millions of needy people around the world for less money.

By simply rejecting the wasteful House-approved cargo preference provision, the Senate can save on costs, advance our national security and live up to America’s values as a country that helps those in greatest need.