CRS urges 'safebox' reserve for long-term food security program

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October 22, 2007

CRS urges 'safebox' reserve for long-term food security programs
The president of Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is urging Congress to pass a Senate version of the Farm Bill that addresses the need for emergency food aid while also advancing food security through long-term development.

CRS President Ken Hackett applauded the draft of the Farm Bill issued by the Senate Agriculture Committee, chaired by Sen. Tom Harkin, which includes a "safebox" that reserves a minimum of $600 million for long-term development programs.

"These initiatives combine food donations with anti-poverty activities to help local partners overcome their dependence on aid," Hackett wrote this week in a letter to Harkin.

Hackett said a commitment to long-term development helps build real food security and improves the quality and cost-effectiveness of U.S. foreign assistance programs. Interrupting these programs because of funding shortfalls, he added, hinders their effectiveness and prevents meeting the needs of the most vulnerable.

"Programs that address chronic hunger cannot easily be stopped and started without causing great damage: for instance, school feeding programs operating in some school years and not in others are inherently less effective," he said.

To address unanticipated food emergencies, CRS advocates turning first to the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust, a grain reserve that is significantly strengthened in the Senate Agriculture Committee's version of the Farm Bill. A better utilized and more robust Emerson Trust that augments a robust safebox would avoid the need to divert funding for long-term development to pay for emergencies, as has occurred repeatedly over the past several years.

At least $2 billion in food aid is required to meet the needs for anticipated emergencies as well as long-term development programs.

"Development food aid programs are diminished or eliminated because the Administration does not anticipate a perennial need for emergency food aid in the appropriations process," Hackett said. "This under-estimation of realistic emergency needs has become the chronic problem in responding to both chronic and acute hunger."

CRS also favors the authorization to use cash for purchasing food aid commodities locally in or near the countries where they are distributed. But Hackett warned that the practice is "not a panacea."

"Great care must be taken to analyze local and regional markets, production and food quality in order not to do harm," he said.

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