Published on June 16, 2012 at 8:53 AM
"Fighting global hunger has traditionally been a bipartisan effort that has united administrations and congresses without regard to party. The Farm Bill developed by the bipartisan leadership of the Senate Agriculture Committee continues that trend," Dan Glickman, former U.S. agriculture secretary, and Richard Leach, president and CEO of World Food Program USA, write in a Politico opinion piece. They say the bill "provides more flexibility to draw on food aid stocks" when the U.S. responds to natural disasters or conflict situations; "increases efficiency by reducing costs linked with monetization -- the practice of selling U.S. food aid commodities on foreign markets to generate cash for development programs"; "promotes enhanced nutrition, increasing the nutritional quality of food aid"; and "fosters greater coordination among U.S. programs and agencies," allowing for short-term food aid responses to be linked with longer-term development objectives. The authors conclude, "Though additional steps still need to be taken to comprehensively address hunger, this Farm Bill enhances U.S. leadership in the fight against hunger and makes an important statement about America's values" (6/14).
 This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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