Food Security and Nutrition Programs in Africa

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, earlier this week I convened a hearing on the topic of food security and nutrition programs in Africa. I am the sponsor of the Global Food Security Act of 2015, a bill which in its prior iteration passed the House of Representatives. The Global Food Security Act, H.R. 1567, will help provide a long-term strategy to combat global hunger by authorizing the existing national food security initiative coordinated by USAID commonly known as Feed the Future. It is a bill with broad bipartisan support, including the original co-sponsorship of my friend and colleague Karen Bass as well as Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce and Ranking Member Eliot Engel.

Investing in global food security is a policy that is both penny wise and pound wise.

This program strengthens nutrition, especially for children during that critical first 1000-day window, from conception to the child's second birthday.

Indeed, there is perhaps no wiser investment that we could make in the human person than to concentrate on ensuring that sufficient nutrition and health assistance is given during the first one thousand days of life: A thousand days that begins with conception, continues throughout pregnancy, includes the milestone of birth and then finishes at roughly the second birthday of the child.

Children who do not receive adequate nutrition in utero are more likely to experience lifelong cognitive and physical deficiencies, such as stunting. UNICEF estimates that one in four children worldwide is stunted due to lack of adequate nutrition.

By addressing nutrition during the first 1000 days of life, we help lay the groundwork that the next 25,000 days--or whatever the number is that our Creator has allotted--are filled with good health.

As the three witnesses at the hearing attested, enhancing food security is also transformational in the lives of millions of small-holder farmers throughout the world, particularly women. Feed the Future teaches small-scale farmers techniques to increase agricultural yield, thereby helping nations achieve food security, something that is in the national security interest of the United States as well.

It is also economical in the long run, and should lead to a reduction in the need for emergency food aid. The approach we have taken in the Global Food Security Act is fiscally disciplined, authorizing an amount for 2016 which is less than what we appropriated for food security programs in 2014. USAID is nevertheless able to do more with less by leveraging our aid with that of other countries, the private sector, NGOs and, especially faith-based organizations, whose great work on the ground in so many different countries impacts so many lives, and who were ably represented at the hearing by Carolyn Woo of Catholic Relief Services.

By statutorily authorizing this existing program, which had its roots in the Bush administration and was formalized by President Obama, we are also increasing our oversight by requiring the administration to report to Congress.

Political will is absolutely essential to enacting a global food security policy that will continue. Such interventions in the lives of so many people in Africa, particularly in the first 1000 days of life, are not only cost-effective but morally imperative.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source