Bush Looks to End Food Aid Restrictions

from The Associated Press via Google

By DESMOND BUTLER – 5 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush is making a renewed push to allow the government to spend food aid money to buy crops in poor countries. Congress is unlikely to go along.

Bush has asked Congress to change a law that requires food supplies for foreign aid to be bought in the United States.

Lawmakers from states with large agricultural industries are opposing the proposal on grounds that American farmers should continue to benefit from the aid program. Congress members, nearing completion of a bill that would govern how the administration spends about $1.2 billion in aid, so far have not included loosened restrictions on food aid sourcing.

Bush mentioned the issue in Monday's State of the Union address. He urged Congress to make the changes that he argued would "help break the cycle of famine" in countries that receive U.S. food aid.

The administration and aid groups have argued that the current policy slows efforts to deliver food to disaster areas, sometimes by months. Critics also say it harms farmers in developing countries by denying them markets that could help them and the people who would work with them out of grinding poverty.

"In some cases, food aid coming from the United States puts local farmers at a disadvantage," said Laura Rusu, a spokeswoman for Oxfam America.

Bush's latest request for the change comes less than three weeks before he is to go to Africa, where he is likely to highlight his administration's efforts to fight HIV-AIDS, malaria and other diseases and poverty.

Keith Williams, a spokesman for the Agriculture Department, says the administration is continuing to push Congress to approve the sourcing changes, and mentioning the issue Monday was an attempt to press the case.

With less than a year in his presidency and his popularity at low levels, Bush lacks the political muscle to push unpopular proposals through Congress. Traditionally, agricultural interests are quite strong politically.

Anti-poverty groups who have been critical of the current policy are skeptical that the administration is determined enough or even politically capable of winning over Congress.

"I don't see that this is going to happen," said Marianne Leach, director of government affairs for the anti-poverty group CARE. "We have not heard about anything that the administration is doing to make this happen."

Some U.S. lawmakers, who oppose Bush's proposal, argue that massive agricultural purchases in developing countries could disrupt local economies and drive up prices for important staples beyond the crisis areas targeted by aid.

"I agree with the president that we should strengthen the emergency response capability of U.S. food assistance," said Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee in a statement. "Allowing some local purchase of food in poor countries seems to have promise, but let's be careful about wholesale change."

The Senate version of the bill would include $25 million — a small fraction of the overall food aid budget_ for a four-year experimental program to test the idea of buying crops abroad.

Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.