By Roger Thurow
One year ago, USAID administrator Rajiv Shah told a full house at the Chicago Council’s Symposium on Global Agriculture and Food Security that, “By far, the most important thing that each of us can do is to hold each other’s feet to the fire.”
Today, the U.S. government is feeling the heat as the first report card on its efforts to provide leadership in global agriculture development is in. The overall grade: B- . In words: Good --if you like Bs -- but not nearly good enough.
“Key changes have put the U.S. in a position to lead,” the progress report states. “Success in the field will depend on increased funding; leadership; whole-of-government coordination, both in Washington and in target countries; and sustained commitment.”
The grading reflects the Chicago Council’s evaluation of the degree to which the Obama administration and Congress have made progress in achieving the changes in U.S. government policy recommended in the Council’s 2009 report, Renewing American Leadership in the Fight Against Global Hunger and Poverty.
The administration, through its Feed the Future Initiative, gets high marks for beginning to reverse the neglect of agriculture development spending over the past three decades. It has begun to rebuild USAID’s capacity to deliver agricultural development assistance, and it has revitalized the agriculture extension and research work at universities in the U.S. and in Africa and Asia.
Lower marks stemmed from the Congressional budget battles that have slashed the administration’s funding requests for Feed the Future and the multi-donor Global Agriculture and Food Security Program. These cuts have betrayed U.S. pledges and, by indicating a wavering commitment, weakened the country’s ability to lead a rally in international aid for agriculture development.
The lowest marks were given to action – or, in most cases, inaction – on improving U.S. policies currently seen as harmful to agricultural development abroad. These policies include: modernizing food aid, repealing restrictions on assistance to exports, reviewing objections to targeted input subsidies, reviving international negotiations to reduce trade distortions, adopting biofuels policies that emphasize market forces. The grade: D.
Here, potential progress was dashed by missed opportunities and little forward action.
In the realm of missed opportunities, the report says: “The Select Committee on Hunger could have been reestablished under the bipartisan Roadmap Act of 2009, and food security policy objectives could have been authorized by the Global Food Security Act of 2009; neither of these pieces of legislation passed. Since 2010, Congressional focus on deficit reduction leaves limited room for action on hunger and poverty.”
And in the realm of little action, there is this: “The policies and issues that cross-cut U.S. domestic agriculture and global agricultural development continue to generate heated debate. While discussions continue, little action has occurred. Policies regarding emergency food aid and targeted vouchers have improved and could bring large gains, but other rules have not changed.”
As we noted in last week’s column: Public Policy Matters. In particular these policies, which, as the evaluation notes, are “widely seen as harmful to global agricultural development and food security, and they were identified in the 2009 report as examples of policies that serve only a narrow domestic political purpose and would be in the overall U.S. national interest to reform.”
But doing very little on the policy front undercuts effort to spend more to help the smallholder farmers in the developing world grow more, and better quality, food. One set of actions attempts to build up incentive for those farmers to be more productive, the other set of non-action destroys that incentive.
But a chance at redemption – and better grades – looms: The renewal of the Farm Bill, set for 2012. That will be an opportunity to demonstrate American leadership and commitment and consistency that shouldn’t be missed. And an opportunity to create the proper policy framework that will allow the other efforts – increasing support for agriculture extension and education, for research, for rural infrastructure improvements, for reversing the neglect of agriculture development – to succeed.
For remember what’s at stake here. “If the U.S. fails to sustain leadership in global agricultural development,” the progress report reminds us, “the result could be a significant setback in the struggle against hunger and rural poverty.”
Then the report would change its name: from Progress to Retreat.
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