LET'S REALLY FEED THE HUNGRY

The traditional method of feeding the world’s hungry with American crops seems to be falling into disfavor. An article in The Times this week by Celia Dugger disclosed that CARE, the big global charity, had decided to stop selling subsidized American farm products in poor African countries because the program was inefficient and undercut local farmers.

CARE’s decision comes just when the Bush administration and others in Washington are seeking to change a related aid program that ships American-grown food abroad to help with emergencies. Mr. Bush proposes to take $300 million from traditional farm-subsidy programs and give the cash to governments and relief organizations abroad to buy food from local farmers.

His proposal has drawn praise from many relief organizations and heavy criticism from big farmers. But it makes good sense. Too much of the $2 billion in food aid that the United States sends abroad is wasted in overhead costs, including shipping. At the other end of the pipeline, local farmers have trouble competing against subsidized American products.

CARE’s decision involves a program under which the federal government buys crops from American farmers, ships them abroad and gives them to charitable agencies. The charities then sell the crops locally and use the proceeds to finance their antipoverty programs.

Worth about $180 million a year, the program acts as a fund-raising device for nonprofits abroad. For that reason, many relief groups are unwilling to give it up and some are pushing for an increase in the new farm bill, which the Senate expects to take up next month. Others, including Catholic Relief Services and Save the Children, agree with CARE that the system is inefficient and has other problems — but say they will not stop converting food into money unless Congress replaces the lost revenues with cash.

Which is precisely what Congress should do. A cash-based system, by one estimate, could save as much as $33 million that is now lost to shipping and transaction costs. That money could be far better spent fighting hunger.
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