Food aid for American farmers doesn’t buy ‘peace.’ It sows dependency on government | Opinion
This week, as fallout continues from the Trump administration’s evisceration of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the self-appointed advocates for the poor and oppressed of the world have been crying out in despair. Among the programs put in limbo is one called Food for Peace. How could the Department of Government Efficiency scrooges be against feeding the poor and thereby delivering peace?
Luckily Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran has stepped in and proposed legislation — with Trump administration approval according to Moran — to move the $700 million program to the Department of Agriculture, where it can be better managed.
“American leadership is more than our military and economic might,” Moran argued on the Senate floor. “Food aid reduces despair and increases stability in fragile countries.”
But if you listen closely to the senator, who speaks for agricultural interests across the country, the Food for Peace program might be more aptly named the Cash for American Farmers, American Agribusiness and American Shippers program.
Moran said he wants to move the program to USDA, “in an effort to prevent waste and move (Food for Peace) closer to the farmers who depend upon it” so the program can “continue to bring revenue to American agriculture.”
That’s right: As much as the poorest nations depend on our food aid, so do Kansas farmers, and Missouri farmers and many more across the country. And just like the myriad other federal agricultural subsidies, the result is destructive both here and abroad in dozens of ways.
Cash for Farmers promotes dependence of farmers on government handouts. Rather than adapt to market conditions and learn to grow profitable products on their land, farmers simply continue to produce the same commodities surpluses they always have that have nowhere to go unless governments buy them.
If what you grow on your land has to be given away for free, maybe you should take that as a sign to grow something else. Government handouts obscure those market signals and make all Americans poorer because our rich agricultural land isn’t used efficiently.
By giving away gushers of food for free in poor foreign nations, Cash for Farmers in America strips farmers in Asia, Africa and elsewhere of the ability to earn a living. When food gets scarce in poor foreign countries, farmers who do have food and farmers in nearby countries can get a better price for what they produce, giving them money to invest in irrigation, fertilizer and other cash-intensive inputs to grow more food. Richer local farmers make the next famine less likely.
That doesn’t happen if America steps in and floods the local market with free food. Local farmers can’t afford to stay in business. As a result, foreign nations become more dependent on American handouts than they would be if their problems were addressed regionally.
You can tell that the program is really Cash for Farmers more than it is Food for Peace by the fact that if we simply gave the money to foreign nations and charities to buy food that was already nearby for those suffering from famine or war, we could feed far more people. Food for Peace buys more expensive food in America, requires that it be processed by more expensive American firms to more expensive American standards, and then shipped by more expensive American-owned ships over huge distances — which can result in the food spoiling before it gets there. Everyone here gets their piece of the handout even if that means the poor get less.
Normally, conservatives like Moran understand that welfare makes people dependent and creates a class of richer people who get paid to take care of them, impoverishing both the programs’ “beneficiaries” and the nation that needlessly supports them. But when the people with their hand out are farmers, we somehow forget this fact of life.
Of course, Sen. Moran is just doing his job representing the interests of farmers across the Midwest, but the least we could do is come up with an accurate name for this boondoggle. It’s not Food for Peace — it’s Cash for Farmers.
