$346 million supports USDA food aid programs

$346 million supports USDA food aid programs    The U.S. Department of Agriculture will award more than $346 million in international assistance grants, which includes transportation and freight costs, under the Food for Progress and McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition programs in fiscal year 2011, benefiting more than 5.2 million people.
   The Food for Progress allocations announced Tuesday include more than 232,000 metric tons of U.S. rice, wheat, vegetable oil, soybean meal, soybean oil, and corn. The McGovern-Dole allocations include nearly 145,000 tons of U.S. beans, bulgur, cornmeal, corn soy blend, dehydrated potatoes, lentils, milled rice, nonfat dry milk, peas, soybean meal, textured soy protein, vegetable oil and wheat.
   These commodities will be purchased on the U.S. market and donated by USDA to foreign governments, private-voluntary organizations, and intergovernmental organizations.
   Food for Progress participants sell the donated U.S. commodities in recipient countries and use the funds generated to introduce and expand free enterprise in the agricultural sector of developing countries and emerging democracies. For example, a past Food for Progress program in Mozambique developed the domestic poultry industry by linking producers with buyers, developing the feed industry, and strengthening industry associations, USDA explained.
   'Food for Progress projects are chosen based on their agricultural focus, program impact, proposal quality, commodity management, the implementing organization’s capability and experience, and program alignment with host government and U.S. government country strategy plans,' the department said.
   McGovern-Dole participants either use or sell the donated U.S. commodities in recipient countries to help support education, child development, and food security in low-income, food deficit countries that are committed to universal education. For example, in Bangladesh, 350,000 children in more than 1,800 schools are being fed by the World Food Program with help from the McGovern-Dole Program.
   USDA said its food aid programs contribute to the goals of President Obama’s global hunger and food security initiative, Feed the Future. This initiative is part of a multilateral effort launched at the L’Aquila World Summit on Food Security in 2009 to accelerate progress toward the Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of people living in extreme poverty and suffering from hunger by 2015.