Title IV of the Food for Peace Act allows for the active participation of the private sector in storage, marketing, transport and distribution. It requires multi-year agreements and an annual report to Congress. Title IV also contains provisions on debt relief and sets out the prohibited uses of food aid, namely: since it contributes significantly in some places and causes damage in others, food aid is controversial. Food aid is accused of discouraging producers in low-income countries and disrupting trade, and it is a focal point for disagreements over genetically modified foods in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. These disagreements are largely the result of the policies of donor countries that misuse food aid for purposes for which it has proved ineffective: supporting domestic agricultural prices, promoting commercial agricultural exports, promoting geostrategic objectives and maintaining a viable maritime industry. The futile use of food aid to pursue donors` own interests also means that food aid is not up to its potential to supply places where availability is insufficient and markets do not provide it reliably and quickly enough to protect human lives. A sensible reform strategy can respond to agricultural and maritime interests and, by reducing waste in a system that at the same time serves too many political masters, make food aid a more effective instrument for promoting development and humanitarian objectives. Improving the orientation of food aid. The fight against errors is at the root of most of the operational problems related to food aid. The guidance includes not only the question of who should receive food aid, but also where these groups are located, what kind of help they need and how and when it should reach them. Good targeting means ensuring that food aid reaches those who are genuinely food insecure and do not have sufficient resources to buy food, and ensuring that, as far as possible, it does not reach other groups. Failure to reach truly food-insecure groups would mean that food aid would not have the expected positive effects.
The accidental provision of food to relatively safe groups for food displaces trade, affects production incentives, or both. PVOs and WFP have improved their targeting methods over the years. Nevertheless, further progress is needed. This requires improving information systems to determine where and when food insecurity is developing and who is being affected. The law was originally drafted by the future administrator of the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), Gwynn Garnett, after returning from a trip to India in 1950. The bill is unusual in that it gave the FAS the ability to enter into agreements with foreign governments without the approval of the U.S. Senate. [4] [12] Johnson also understood that food aid was used for diplomatic purposes and strengthened U.S. strategic interests. To strengthen Food for Peace`s foreign policy direction, he continued to transfer the duties of Director of Food for Peace from the White House to the State Department, where the Director would serve as Special Assistant to Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Although the Johnson administration has programmed PL-480 products to meet the critical needs of hunger, johnson has in several cases approved food aid deliveries to countries to allow recipients to divert spending on military equipment or security purposes. The administration has also negotiated PL-480 deals with countries to prevent these leaders from accepting help from U.S.
adversaries. Johnson used the PL-480 accords as leverage to gain support for U.S. foreign policy goals, and even placed critical aid against hunger for India on a limited basis until he received assurances that the Indian government would implement land reforms and mitigate criticism of U.S. policy regarding Vietnam. While the PL-480 raw materials continued to serve humanitarian purposes, the program as an instrument of U.S. foreign policy had limitations, especially given Congressional foreign spending cuts until the end of the decade. Johnson stressed that the Food for Peace program is a cornerstone of U.S. foreign aid and intends to make revisions to the program to strengthen its foreign policy direction. While Johnson believed that the U.S. should expand food aid on humanitarian grounds, he also advocated conditioning food aid agreements on the recipient country`s ability to implement the necessary agricultural reforms. The self-help provisions applicable to both pl-480 and other IDA aid would contribute to the economic development of beneficiary countries by strengthening their agricultural sectors. The Food for Peace Act of 1966 (PL 89-808) required that PL-480 include language describing the steps a recipient had already taken or intended to take to increase food production and improve storage and distribution.
Johnson continued these revisions at the same time as he announced a “war on hunger” aimed at accelerating agricultural production, improving nutrition, eradicating disease and curbing population growth. It remained for the United States to show leadership and restore Johnson`s domestic reforms of the Great Society on a global scale. The Foreign Market Development Programme was approved by the Agricultural Trade Act of 1978. Like the MAP, this program provides cost-sharing assistance to eligible non-profit commercial agricultural organizations to conduct approved international market development activities. The USDA enters into agreements with U.S. nonprofit trade organizations that have the broadest representation of the manufacturers of the advertised products. Priority is given to organizations that are represented nationally in terms of membership and scope. Activities under this program generally focus on long-term restrictions on imports abroad and are aimed at creating, maintaining, and increasing long-term growth in demand for U.S. agricultural, fisheries, and forestry products. Negotiation of a new Global Food Aid Compact to replace the expired Food Aid Convention.
The Food Aid Convention (FAC) was an agreement between donor countries to ensure a minimum volume of food aid that does not disrupt trade. Lacking surveillance or law enforcement capacity, he languished. A new Global Food Aid Compact (GFAC) is to replace the CAF. GFAC would give explicit responsibilities to recipient country governments and organizations distributing food aid under an international code of conduct that would strengthen accountability, efficiency, fairness and transparency. By committing donor countries not only to respect traditional minimum tonnages, but also to provide adequate additional funding and relax rules requiring supply, processing and shipping services to donor countries, a GFAC could enable humanitarian and development organizations to deploy adequate resources in a given context in a given context in a cost-effective and timely manner. .