November 7, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
A controversial farm bill that would affect antihunger groups at home and abroad is bogged down in the Senate.
The Associated Press reports that the $286-billion legislation is stalled as senators debate tax proposals and other issues.
Among other things, the legislation would set spending levels for federal food and nutrition programs run by the Department of Agriculture.
According to Bill Bolling, the executive director of the Atlanta Community Food Bank, the bill would significantly benefit food banks by allocating $4.3-billion over five years in new spending for food stamps and other programs.
“This bill represents a major step forward in bringing hope to the more than 1 million Georgians and 35 million Americans living on the brink of hunger,” he wrote Tuesday in an opinion article
in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The bill could also affect international aid organizations by changing how the United States provides food assistance abroad.
Under current rules, the government requires food aid to come from American farmers and be shipped to needy countries.
The Oakland Institute, a liberal think tank in California, is pushing lawmakers to approve a proposal to allow foreign governments and charities to purchase 25 percent of non-emergency food relief from local farmers.
“Purchasing available food in the country experiencing a crisis or in a nearby country could enable food-aid providers to deliver more food more quickly,” the think tank said on its Web
site.
Such a plan faces stiff opposition however. The House of Representatives rejected a similar proposal this year, and some nonprofit leaders oppose changing the current delivery system, saying it would erode political support for antihunger spending.
