Hidden Misappropriations: Farm Bill 2024

Amidst political turmoil, it's easy to lose track of important governmental decisions that alter our global impact.

By Mark McDermott

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As Congress grapples with appropriations for next year, the Farm Bill has resurfaced in political discussion. The Farm Bill’s domestic impact on infrastructure and resources available to American farmers is clear. Tucked away within the Farm Bill, however, is a critical element of the United States’s impact overseas: the Food for Peace Act. This act supports the pivotal work of nongovernmental organizations abroad with communities that are overwhelmed by strife, climate change, disease, or any of the myriad factors that make agriculture so hard and so variable from year to year. The true value of this act is threatened by a well-intentioned amendment, HR 4293, that greatly restricts the flexibility of these organizations. This amendment would undermine the ability of participating organization to promote long-term resiliency and self-sufficiency abroad by restricting funding to the purchase of U.S.-grown commodities.

Currently, organizations abroad can use Food for Peace Act resources to educate and support the promulgation of American agricultural expertise and experience. Alongside lifesaving emergency hunger relief in the short term, these farsighted programs allow American farmers to reach beyond our borders and adapt to local circumstances by demonstrating the benefits of microfinance and direct-to-consumer strategies. This allows the Food for Peace act to cultivate new markets and discover new innovations for American farmers, just as other industries invest in training and research abroad. HR 4293 would reduce this holistic interaction to rote transaction. In the face of polarizing and self-interested threats from China, Russia, and others, it is all the more important for the United States to show itself as a partner, not a tyrant, willing to work with local communities and governments. Regions of the world that are the farthest behind have the most growth ahead of them. Only the experience of prosperous American agriculture, conveyed in a flexible Food for Peace act, can keep abreast of modern technologies and climate change to empower communities to support themselves in the American way rather than as dependents.

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CRS and other active organizations need flexibility to build community resilience, not dependence.