AMO Currents - U.S. coalition blasts proposed cut in food-aid funding

AMO Currents - Posted: February 16, 2011

U.S. coalition blasts proposed cut in food-aid funding

A proposed cut of $800 million in U.S. food-aid programs from fiscal year 2010 levels would spread starvation throughout the world's poorest nations, eradicate thousands of jobs in the U.S. and have a devastating impact on U.S.-flag shipping.

In a statement released Feb. 14, USA Maritime - a coalition of which American Maritime Officers and American Maritime Officers Service are members - blasted the proposal from the chairman of the Appropriations Committee in the House of Representatives to cut 42 percent from the President's combined food-aid budget for PL 480 Title II and the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education Program.

The complete statement from USA Maritime is available online.

"The proposal takes a massively disproportionate bite out of America's longstanding international food-aid program and will result in more starvation among the world's poor," the coalition stated. "This budget reduction will cut off or reduce the number of needy beneficiaries in food-aid programs by approximately 18 million - more than the combined populations of New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.

"For more than 60 years, American farmers and ships loading U.S.-grown commodities in ports like Houston, New Orleans and Norfolk have delivered food aid to the world's hungry and malnourished. In-kind aid programs like Food for Peace are successful at meeting the nutritional needs of the chronically hungry while remaining cost-effective.

"The combination of handling, processing and transporting U.S. food-aid commodities alone - not including farming costs - results in more than $1.9 billion in output from U.S. industries, $523 million in earnings for American households and more than 13,000 jobs," the coalition stated. "Deep-sea freight alone results in more than 97,000 jobs in other parts of the U.S. economy."