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New US Farm Bill provides hope for food aid reform

14 Apr 2014

NEW YORK: Efforts to improve the way the US government distributes roughly $2 billion in international food aid each year achieved some successes in the recently enacted Agriculture Act of 2014 - commonly referred to as the Farm Bill - but the food aid mechanism used by the world's largest donor continues to prioritise the needs of US commercial interests.

Photo: Tanya Bindra/IRIN

The positives are: a pilot project in the 2008 Farm Bill that tested the feasibility of local and regional procurement of food aid during emergencies has been transformed into a regularised programme that will provide $80 million for local and regional procurement (LRP) each year. In addition, the new Farm Bill increases from 13-20% the percentage of funding in the largest food aid programme, Food for Peace (or Title II), that can be spent on non-emergency programmes with cash-based resources or commodities rather than through the much-criticised vehicle of monetised food aid.

Read the full article on www.irinnews.org.