It has been a couple of months since the Trump Administration began shutting down USAID. As the industry works to adjust, the Washington Grain Commission says it is hoping to see the program get back to its roots.
“There’s been a push for a while to increase this transparency and accountability, and what they say is ‘put the food back in food aid’. There’s been quite a shift in the last five or ten years, even, to cash payments overseas or purchasing commodities overseas, often from our competitors. So, we would like to see a return to the original intent of the program,” said Casey Chumrau.
She is hoping the program can be reworked, saying farmers in the Pacific Northwest rely on that business.
“It is a significant part of the PNW’s export plan, I would say at this point. Food aid is, if you would count it as a country, a top ten market for soft white in the last decade. And so that wheat is purchased commercially like any other bushel of wheat and does support our farmers and then, obviously, helps battle hunger across the world as well.”
USAID’s most recent budget was around $40 billion. It began in the 1960s under President Kennedy, and averaged about $2 billion a year in small grains purchases.
