Last chance for reforms to feed millions

Our current food aid system could serve millions of people without any additional funding. We could get food to hungry children faster and it wouldn't cost American taxpayers anything more.

Supporters like you helped pass food aid reform in the Senate now, we need to pull out all the stops to make sure that the final Farm Bill on its wsay through the House includes these critical changes and we're able to get food to the people who need it.

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Pass food aid reform in the Farm Bill

Dear [Decision Maker],

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I'm writing as a constituent and as a supporter of the poverty fighting organization CARE. As the House prepares to vote on the Agricultural Act of 2014 (known as the Farm Bill), I respectfully urge you to modernize U.S. international food aid by supporting much-needed reforms which are included in the final conference report.

Although notable progress has been made over the past several years to improve U.S. food aid programs, it has become increasingly clear that our current system needs more flexibility to achieve maximum impact in responding to complex emergency situations. Moreover, in a time of constrained budgets and increasing needs, more must be done to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of our food aid system.

Food aid reform provisions included in the Farm Bill conference report build on the momentum started in the FY14 Omnibus Spending Bill which gave greater flexibility in how the U.S. responds to a food emergency by reducing the need for monetization, the current program in which food aid is purchased in the U.S. and shipped overseas to fund development programs.

Specifically, the food aid reform provisions in the Farm Bill would:

* Authorize $80 million for a permanent local and regional procurement program to enable the U.S. Department of Agriculture to purchase food closer to an emergency, when appropriate.

* Increase the share of Title II (Food for Peace) funds that can be used to cover non-commodity expenses of food aid programs, up to 20 percent from its current cap of 13 percent, thus decreasing the need to monetize food aid commodities and improving flexibility for programs.

* Require the U.S. Agency for International Development to monitor recovery rates for monetization transactions performed under food aid programs, and report to Congress annually on transactions that fail to generate at least a 70 percent recovery rate.

CARE's decades of work in emergency food assistance has shown us that current U.S. food aid programs can be made far more efficient and effective in meeting the needs of women, men, and children during a crisis. The reforms included in the Farm Bill conference report are an important step towards improving the U.S. food aid program, including ending the harmful practice of monetization, and I urge your support for passage of these reforms.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Address]
[City, State ZIP]