The US is breaking a lifesaving global food aid system

Buried in the spending package that recently reopened the U.S. government is a bipartisan commitment of $1.2 billion for the Food for Peace initiative. For more than seven decades, Food for Peace has purchased crops from American farmers to feed people in dire need around the world. Given the recent draconian cuts to foreign aid, the new investment is welcome — but only if the State Department maintains strategic control of the program and the money is actually spent to save lives. 

Since the U.S. Agency for International Development was shuttered, the once steady flow of U.S. lifesaving food aid has dramatically slowed. Last year, the State Department — now responsible for running the program — spent just half of last year’s $1.8 billion Food for Peace budget, according to sources familiar with budget plans. And this year it has issued no new awards at all, even as needs have risen for six straight years and a record 295 million people are facing acute hunger. 

While the State Department has much work to do to effectively manage its new foreign aid duties, this slowdown is not about a lack of know-how or systems. It’s on pause largely because of ongoing negotiations to shift Food for Peace to the U.S. Department of Agriculture through a backdoor agreement designed to bypass Congress, according to sources familiar with the draft interagency agreement.