The New York Times (pg. A9)  [Printer-friendly version]
May 2, 2008

BUSH SEEKS MORE FOOD AID FOR POOR COUNTRIES

By Steven Lee Myers

President Bush on Thursday proposed spending an additional $770
million in emergency food assistance for poor countries, responding to
rising food prices that have resulted in social unrest in several
nations.

The president's proposal came only days after Democrats in Congress
called for increases, and it received a largely positive response,
though some Democrats criticized the fact that the additional aid
would not be available until the next fiscal year, which begins in
October.

Mr. Bush's proposal, announced in a previously unscheduled appearance
in the East Room of the White House, underscored how quickly the
global food crisis had risen to the top of Washington's agenda.

The administration last month ordered the Department of Agriculture to
release $200 million in commodities paid for by a special trust fund,
while the United States Agency for International Development promised
$40 million more in emergency aid to countries hardest hit by soaring
prices and shortages.

"In some of the world's poorest nations, rising prices can mean the
difference between getting a daily meal and going without food," Mr.
Bush said.

The $770 million would be included in next year's budget, increasing
total American food assistance to $2.6 billion, the deputy budget
director, Stephen S. McMillin, said in a telephone conference. In the
current year, the administration has proposed supplemental spending to
bring the total to $2.3 billion, he said.

Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the chamber's second-ranking
Democrat, welcomed the president's proposal "as a sign of the
magnitude of this problem." But a fellow Democrat, Senator Robert P.
Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania, said in a telephone interview that the
administration needed to act with "a real sense of urgency" and
endorse a swifter increase. Mr. Casey and Mr. Durbin this week asked
the administration for an immediate $200 million increase in foreign
food aid, on top of a $350 million emergency package the
administration had already proposed in a supplemental spending
measure.

"The dollar amount is significant," Mr. Casey said of the president's
latest proposal. "The commitment is important. It is way too late."

In his remarks, Mr. Bush also called on other countries to ease trade
barriers restricting agricultural imports or exports and to lift bans
on genetically modified foods. He urged Congress to give the
government greater flexibility in dispersing assistance. He said the
administration wanted to use a quarter of all the American aid to buy
food from local farmers in foreign countries rather than here in the
United States.

"In order to break the cycle of famine that we're having to deal with
too often in a modern era, it's important to help build up local
agriculture," he said. He did not insist on that approach as a
condition for increasing aid, though.

The proposal received strong support on Thursday from the charity
Oxfam America. "While America provides half of the world's food aid,
this generosity is undermined by legal restrictions and bureaucracy,
as food aid must be purchased in the U.S. and transported on U.S.-
flagged ships," Oxfam said in a statement.

Addressing growing anxiety about rising food prices at home, the
subject of a Senate hearing on Thursday, the White House emphasized
that even with the proposed increases, foreign food aid was equal to
only a small fraction of the $62 billion the government was expected
to spend this year on domestic food programs, mostly for food stamps
and children's nutrition programs.

"The American people are generous people, and they're compassionate
people," Mr. Bush said. "We believe in a timeless truth: to whom much
is given, much is expected."