Rural America - Rural Africa Posted by David Shorr

Surely it's a sign of the times that we have to read news reports from East Africa to find out what's going on with the farm bill in Congress. A Celia Dugger piece in Tuesday's New York Times highlighted the issue of American food agricultural development aid to Africa and longstanding rules requiring the US Government to "buy American." Bizare as it seems, our aid programs in Africa are often prohibited from purchasing corn and other grains from nearby in Africa, and are instead required to ship food from the US, at great added cost. Actually, I already knew all that. But what got me were the the arguments being used in Congress to preserve this crazy status quo in the farm bill. Advocates of preserving the rule claim that it's necessary to preserve domestic political support for food aid programs. According to quotes in Dugger's piece, which is an excellent description of the on-the-ground consequences, claim that buying the aid from within Africa will hurt American farmers. This gives Americans, and farmers, ridiculously little credit. I live here in the Iowa heartland, and I can't believe my neighbors are that stingy. In fact, I'm sure of it. Do we seriously think American farmers (or the rest of the public) would oppose food aid for Africans if we stop shipping it from here? And would it really hurt rural Americans for us to support agricultural development in rural Africa? Whatever the impact here might be, I'm sure it's tiny compared to the hardship and poverty reported from on the ground in Kenya. So much for our supposed belief in providing "a hand-up, not a hand-out."