Ed Royce: “I appreciate the very hard work of Chairman Lucas, but there is one program in glaring need of reform. This bipartisan…”

“I appreciate the very hard work of Chairman Lucas, but there is one program in glaring need of reform. This bipartisan amendment will make our well-intentioned, but grossly outdated, international food aid programs more flexible, more efficient, and far more effective. Under the current system, which was designed 60 years ago, all of our food aid must be purchased in the U.S., and at least 50 percent has to be shipped on U.S.-flagged vessels. Yet, today, 60 years later, food prices and U.S. agricultural exports have reached historic highs, and this makes this program of negligible value to the U.S. farm economy. Food aid purchases now account for less than half a percent of net farm income. Businesses at the ports are booming, and there are only a handful of U.S.-flagged ships. When asked how the proposed reforms would impact American farmers, the Secretary of Agriculture stated: Far from ending a partnership between our Nation's humanitarian and development mission and our world-class agricultural and food system, we are recommitting to the role that American agriculture plays in food security and tapping into the ingenuity of American farmers and the powers of science and innovation to avoid future shortages and global hunger. Mr. Chairman, these subsidies can no longer be justified. They only add to the cost of the program, and they delay by months the time that it takes for food aid to reach desperate disaster victims.…”