USDA has been given temporary management of Food for Peace, the flagship global food assistance program once housed under the U.S. Department of State and administered by the now shuttered USAID. Food for Peace is one of three U.S. foreign food aid programs, established to help relieve hunger in countries overseas.
Wheat is a staple of food assistance programs and has been since their inception. In fact, if food aid was a country it would be a top ten market for U.S. wheat exports. Often, wheat shipments for food aid are supplied with soft white and hard red wheats out of the Idaho and the Pacific Northwest, and these donations have resulted in some of our most loyal customers, such as South Korea, Colombia, and the Philippines.
“For the U.S. wheat farmer, food aid is more than a donation — it is an investment in global stability and market access.”
— Dalton Henry, Vice President of Policy and Communications, U.S. Wheat Associates
Idaho Wheat celebrates the move to USDA — something the wheat industry has been working toward for years. USDA’s commitment to American farmers promises that commodities and products donated through U.S. food aid programs will be purchased from U.S. farmers at fair market value, not purchased from U.S. competitors at a lower price.
An official ledger has yet to be released, but details and logistics are being coordinated now between USDA and the World Food Programme for the first shipments of Food for Peace under the shift in leadership. This week, Idaho Wheat Commission staff, joined by U.S. Wheat Associates Vice President of Policy and Communications, and colleagues from Oregon, Washington, and Kansas, met with administration from USDA in Washington, D.C. to learn more about USDA’s vision directing food assistance programs. Through open dialogue, the group was able to express the importance of food assistance programs to Idaho farmers and explore what farmers and farmer organizations can do to keep the transfer of Food for Peace to USDA permanent.
Humanitarian food aid programs like Food for Peace and Food for Progress create fair market purchases for U.S. wheat farmers and have resulted in long term customer loyalty. More importantly, however, these programs have provided an avenue by which Idaho wheat growers can provide nutritious, quality wheat to hungry families around the world.