Hearing Provides Details on Food Security Initiative

Apr 26th, 2010 9:59 AM UTC
By Beth Adler

On Thursday I attended the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the Global Food Security Act. Senators Kerry and Lugar presided over the hearing with Senators Casey, Menendez, and Cardin all also questioning the witnesses. There was an impressive witness line-up comprised of Deputy Secretary of State Jacob Lew, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah, Dan Glickman, former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, and Catherine Bertini, former Executive Director of the UN World Food Program.

This hearing served to highlight not only the importance of global food security, which has been a topic of conversation and action some time, but to hear in greater detail how the Administration’s Global Food Security Initiative aligns with the principles of the Global Food Security Act.

Senator Kerry opened the event by reminding us that the International Affairs Budget is being challenged, and that short-changing programs like the Global Food Security Initiative will provide some budget relief, but at great cost to global efforts. Senator Lugar also noted the seriousness of food insecurity, and emphasized that with rising energy costs, climate change, and water scarcity, feeding a growing global population will be increasingly difficult without dramatic action.

We gained some additional insight into the Administration’s Global Food Security Initiative—which has been dubbed the Feed the Future initiative. Per Deputy Secretary Lew and Administrator Shaw’s testimonies, the Administration’s initiative will be centered on four principles: science and technology, the essential role of women in food security, the U.S. comparative advantage, and working in partnership with developing countries. Administrator Shaw emphasized that the initiative would coordinate with countries’ agricultural plans, focus on sustainable, location-specific innovation, and work to establish access to credit and markets.

Several important themes emerged from the hearing, including:

• The importance of coordination, both on the ground in-country, and within the U.S. government, to ensure that the U.S. Global Food Security Initiative can have the fullest impact possible
• The crucial role that women play in making this initiative successful. Projects within the initiative will be designed specifically to engage women, and gender disaggregated data will be collected to monitor the success of the initiative at making the most of the lynchpin role women play in producing food as well as feeding and investing in their families.
• The need to continue to increase capacity at USAID to implement this food security strategy. Lower funding rates for agriculture in the last two decades have meant less staff capacity for agricultural projects at USAID. The agency has already begun scaling up their agricultural expertise, and will continue to do so in order to implement this initiative.
• The links between food insecurity and instability. Increases in food prices in 2008 sparked riots across the globe. This is just one example of the possibility that increased food insecurity can lead to increased economic instability which, in turn, can spur political instability.

While we have yet to see an implementation plan for this initiative, this hearing gave us a taste of the actions the administration intends to take. It was also promising to hear the common themes drawn from the hearing and to see the commitment to food security demonstrated both by the Senators and members of the Administration.

Intrigued? Want to know more. Watch the hearing or check out the statements from Senator Kerry, Senator Lugar, Deputy Secretary Lew, Administrator Shah, and Dan Glickman and Catherine Bertini.

TAGS: Food Security in Focus, Policy News, USAID