FOOD AID AGENCIES FEEL CRUNCH FROM AFRICAN FAMINE, IRAQI WAR

FOOD AID AGENCIES FEEL CRUNCH FROM AFRICAN FAMINE, IRAQI WAR    U.S. food-aid agencies are beginning to feel the strain from the ongoing famine in Africa and now with a hungry population to feed in war-torn Iraq.
   “The humanitarian community will be stretched in ways that are unprecedented in the next 12 months,” said James T. Morris, executive director for the United Nations’ World Food Program, which fed 77 million people in about 80 countries last year. “There are twice as many natural disasters than there were 10 years ago.”
   The U.S. government, via the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Agency for International Development, supplies about 60 percent of the world’s food aid. During the past three years alone, the United States has shipped about 18 million metric tons of aid to feed about 100 million people. Significant increases in food aid volumes are expected for crisis relief in 2003.
   At the USDA & USAID Export Food Aid Conference in Kansas City, Mo., this week, Lauren Landis, director of USAID’s Food for Peace program, described 2002 as “an unprecedented year” for U.S. food-aid to Africa. About 500,000 metric tons were drawn from the so-called Emerson Trust to avert famine in Southern Africa, and another 100,000 metric tons of wheat was shipped to Ethiopia.
   It’s estimated that Iraq’s 25.5 million population will now require about 450,000 metric tons of food per month for the next four months until oil production can be sufficiently restored in the country.
   USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios was angered by recent criticism from some interests that the agency bought a portion of food aid from non-U.S. sources. “We’re not putting our troops at risk by waiting to ship U.S. food,” he said.
   The agency decided to purchase some overseas sourced food aid for the first month of its Iraqi feeding program while U.S. grown and shipped commodities are on the way, Natsios said.