Congress Perils Food for Peace Program : Foreign aid: GOP critics in the House call for eliminating two major components by 1998. But supporters say it remains a cornerstone of U.S. humanitarian aid and is still essential for American agriculture.

Critics see it as an outmoded relic of the Cold War, when American wealth was spread to underdeveloped nations to prevent gains by communism and to sell off U.S. farm surpluses.

But supporters of the Food for Peace program, begun during the Dwight D. Eisenhower Administration in 1954, say it remains a cornerstone of U.S. humanitarian aid and is still essential for American agriculture.

And food aid advocates say the worldwide need has never been greater.

“The pressure on the world’s poor is growing more intense,” said Catherine Bertini, executive director of the World Food Programme, an international relief organization.

“A billion people earn less in a day than the price of a bus ticket in Washington, D.C., and almost as many are chronically malnourished and hungry,” Bertini said.

Total U.S. food aid reached about $1.7 billion in fiscal year 1993, about 4% of national food exports, according to the Congressional Research Service. For fiscal year 1996, total spending is proposed at only about $1 billion.

One key component, the Food for Peace program, has been targeted for sharp reduction or elimination by some Republicans in Congress. The House budget resolution calls for elimination of two major parts of the program by 1998.

One part targeted for elimination, known as Title III, provides U.S. food grants to some of the least-developed countries in the world. In 1993, 61 poverty-stricken countries were eligible for this aid, more than half of them in Africa.

The food provided under Title III can be used directly to feed people or be sold by the country involved, with the proceeds used for items ranging from health programs to construction such as roads and irrigation systems.

The House International Relations Committee voted in May to terminate the program, which last year amounted to $157 million. That got the attention of the House Agriculture Committee and its chairman, Rep. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.).

“We on the Agriculture Committee have a keen interest in making the Food for Peace program as sound and effective as possible,” Roberts said. “We want to maintain the three goals originally set out: humanitarian relief, economic development and the expansion of agricultural markets.”

Roberts, along with Rep. Bill Emerson (R-Mo.) and others, managed to amend the legislation that gutted Title III, restoring $25 million to keep the program afloat--barely.

But powerful forces that want it eliminated remain as the GOP struggles to move toward a balanced federal budget. Aid to foreign countries is a popular target politically when there are so many problems at home.

Emerson, who has long been interested in food aid issues, said recently that humanitarian aid should be viewed differently.

“We help others while we help ourselves,” Emerson said. “Humanitarian assistance should be isolated from all other forms of aid.”

J. Brian Atwood, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said Title III has enabled the United States to link together food aid and economic development.

In Bangladesh, for example, the program helped establish a food reserve that ensured fair market prices for farmers, created a more effective food distribution system and helped end subsidies that benefited mostly an urban elite.

In Bolivia, Title III has helped build roads that bring products to market and irrigation systems that increase yields.

“The international community is entering a period of great uncertainty, and U.S. leadership remains critical to meet these challenges,” Atwood said. “Now is the time to stay the course that has served us so well.”