Reauthorizing the Farm Bill
Floor Speech
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Mr. MANN. Madam Speaker, in preparation for reauthorizing the farm bill in 2023, I rise today to deliver the eighth installment of my farm bill impact series, where I am highlighting various aspects of the farm bill that deserve Congress' awareness and support.
The food aid programs within the farm bill not only support the nutrition of millions of Americans struggling with hunger, but they also help to stop global conflicts before they start.
Kansas is the Wheat State, and wheat is the number one commodity used in U.S. donations for international food aid. If you combine all the aid destinations, they amount to a top 10 market for U.S. wheat.
The last two farm bills have granted USAID flexibility in implementing aid programs, which has resulted in the U.S. purchasing from other countries more than half of the total food we give out.
That is a noble thing to use our resources to help hungry people overseas, but our government should prioritize the commodities of American farmers, ranchers, and agricultural producers as we carry out this good work abroad.
International food assistance programs work alongside legislation to help stabilize countries ravaged by famine and war, reduce terrorism, and give people an alternative from fleeing their homeland just to find food.
For instance, I introduced a resolution condemning and prohibiting the use of hunger as a weapon, which some bad actors do in countries suffering from war and natural disasters. Food aid programs work alongside the legislation to avert food shortages in such countries, making it more difficult for anyone to use hunger as a weapon in the first place.
The farm bill has some excellent programs for international food assistance that I believe should be reauthorized.
The Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust is a special authority in the 2018 farm bill that allows USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance to respond to unanticipated food crises abroad. I just sent a bipartisan letter earlier this month asking the President to release BEHT.
Food for Peace is another great program through which our country responds to humanitarian crises and food security problems globally. The idea for this program actually came from a meeting of the Southwest Kansas Farm Bureau and first appeared in 1954 when President Eisenhower signed the Agriculture Trade Development and Assistance Act into law.
Today, USDA and USAID partner with organizations to implement Food for Peace and other food aid programs, stopping global conflicts from escalating into humanitarian disasters.
The McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program, named in part for Kansas' own Bob Dole, helps support education, child development, and food security in low-income, food-deficit countries around the globe. The program provides for the donation of U.S. agricultural commodities, as well as financial and technical assistance to support school meal programs as well as maternal and child nutrition programs.
I supported this program in fiscal year 2022 and fiscal year 2023 appropriations because it has a proven track record for reducing hunger, improving literacy in children, and helping provide nutrition for pregnant and nursing mothers, infants, and preschoolers.
Earlier this month, Nicole Berg, president of the National Association of Wheat Growers, spoke to the House Agriculture Committee's Livestock and Foreign Agriculture Subcommittee. In her testimony, she gave us her eyewitness account, from her 2019 trip to Kenya and Tanzania, of how international food assistance helps those people in most need.
She visited refugee camps where the World Food Programme is feeding 98 percent of the 200,000 people there who hail from nine countries. She said that witnessing U.S. food shipments saving lives firsthand changed her life.
I want to make sure that, going forward, we use U.S. commodities while we carry out this good work abroad. If America is going to conduct international food assistance in an effective way, the Biden administration is going to have to get a grip on the agricultural impact of its trade and foreign policies.
Sadly, on an international scale, the Biden administration is turning a blind eye to agriculture. Russia's assault on Ukraine is one of the most horrifying humanitarian crises in recent memory, and it has grave food security implications for Europe.
Ukraine is known as the breadbasket of Europe. It is the third- largest grain exporter in the world. You would think this administration would want a point person to develop a strategy for addressing this looming problem, but President Biden still hasn't appointed either a USDA Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs or a Chief Agricultural Negotiator for USTR.
The Biden administration has also sat back and done nothing to hold China accountable for stiffing American farmers out of $16 billion in the Phase One trade deal, and the President left agriculture out of his Indo-Pacific strategy entirely.
I, along with American farmers, ranchers, and agricultural producers, am appalled at this shortsightedness. You cannot take food for granted, which is why the Biden administration needs to wake up and why Congress must think carefully about the reauthorization of the international food assistance programs in the farm bill.
I will be back on the floor soon to deliver another installment of my farm bill impact series. America's farmers, ranchers, and agricultural producers are American heroes who are bearing the responsibility of feeding hungry people around the world.
Their efforts deserve the full support of Congress because the food security and, therefore, the national security of America hangs in the balance.
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