Farm Bill could do more to improve food aid

"The policy changes in the [Senate's draft Farm Bill] represent improvements to U.S. food aid policy, but we think Congress could do more," Kelley Hauser, a policy analyst with ONE, writes in this post on the Care2 blog. She describes a letter sent by ONE to U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Chair Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Ranking Member Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), "asking them to buy emergency food aid closer to where it is needed -- to save on shipping and food costs, as well as to speed up delivery" and "to require more efficiency when organizations sell U.S.-grown food in developing countries to fund development projects." She concludes, "By increasing the impact of our food aid dollars and making monetization more efficient, we can save more lives and help more people break the cycle of malnutrition and poverty as part of ONE's Thrive campaign" (Matsuoka, 4/27).