U.S. lawmakers seek overhaul of overseas food aid rules

U.S. lawmakers launched their latest effort to ease restrictions on international food assistance programs, which they say would free hundreds of millions of dollars a year and get aid to millions more hungry people around the world. Republicans and Democrats in the Senate and House of Representatives introduced the “Food for Peace Modernization Act of 2018” which they want to include in the 2018 farm bill. Among other things, the bill would end a requirement that 100 percent of food aid commodities be produced in the United States, changing it to 25 percent. This, the sponsors argue, would drastically cut the amount of food aid money spent on overhead costs like shipping. The measure would also end a requirement to “monetize” food aid, which the bill’s sponsors described as a process in which aid groups must sell U.S. food overseas and use proceeds of those sales to fund development programs.