A World without USAID

The disruptions at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) that began earlier this year will likely have devastating effects on food systems and global food and nutrition security. Most of you probably haven’t felt it directly, but the consequences promise to be painful for many.

USAID works rather quietly doing a vast array of global good. Programs include poverty reduction, crisis response, disease prevention and mitigation, education, climate risk measures, nutrition improvement, agricultural development, economic development and trade, and strengthening democracies/good governance. 

Many think of aid as providing “handouts.” That’s called humanitarian assistance, and it’s used in emergency situations such as natural disasters, famine, conflicts, and other situations where people are unable to provide for themselves. But much, if not most, aid work involves helping people help themselves. That’s called development work, and it takes many forms, including knowledge sharing, education, training, skills development, and general enablement. USAID provided the world’s largest share of aid, about 40% of the total. 

So, what do the funding stoppages and shutdowns mean for the global food system? A lot. USAID spent $5 billion on food assistance globally during the 2023-24 fiscal year. With that assistance gone, what will fill the gap?

Food that was destined for food-insecure populations was abruptly halted, much of it already en route or awaiting distribution. About 500,000 metric tons (worth approximately $500 million) of U.S.-grown crops are set to rot or potentially be pilfered from storage, when 36 million people could have been nourished by them. And more isn’t coming any time soon.

Then there are the American farmers supplying that food. Under the Food for Peace program, USAID was a major buyer of their crops (about $2 billion in fiscal year 2023-24, representing a million metric tons), and it evaporated overnight. This is surplus food that cannot be absorbed in the domestic market, and as of this writing farmers have not been paid what they’ve contracted for. 

Farmers see Food for Peace as de-risking and developing new markets over time, not as aid recipients but as future consumers of American commodities. A proposed congressional bill is calling for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to absorb Food for Peace, but there are concerns in the aid community that the USDA lacks the in-country staffing, emergency response, and technical know-how to properly execute the program.

Malnutrition is an urgent concern, especially for children and pregnant women. Blanket waivers were offered to permit “life-saving humanitarian assistance,” including food aid and global health services such as management of severe acute malnutrition. But the waivers are essentially useless because the USAID payment system was shuttered, there is little or no communication, the definition of lifesaving humanitarian assistance keeps changing, and there isn’t sufficient staff remaining to support.

The World Food Program (WFP) received a stop-work order, curbing distribution of 507,000 metric tons of food aid valued at over $340 million across 23 countries. Thankfully, that distribution was allowed to resume, but the WFP bureau in Johannesburg is being shuttered due to lack of funding.  UNICEF was also a major recipient of USAID funds, but it received termination notices for its grants. 

U.S. manufacturers of Plumpy’Nut (ready-to-use therapeutic food) Edesia and Mana have been riding a rollercoaster. Their shipments were cancelled in January despite the lifesaving nature of their products. They were able to resume on February 6 after a week of scrambling and lobbying, only to have their contracts terminated again on February 26. Then late on March 2, contracts were once more reinstated.

Mana alone manufactures 500,000 pounds of the fortified peanut paste a day, feeding 10 million children each year. The last stoppage would have left 400,000 children without access to food.  

On the development side, the USAID Feed the Future program was metaphorically teaching people to fish. Thirteen U.S. universities hosted 17 Innovation Labs that conducted research and provided valuable learning and information on important topics like soybeans, food safety, agricultural practices, and nutrition policy. Each lab employed about 20-30 people, most located in the beneficiary countries. This valuable research has hit a wall, and those local jobs and future food system improvements are gone. 

It should be noted that USAID, like government agencies large and small, federal and local, isn’t perfect. It can be inefficient and sometimes wasteful. It achieved impressive results but also had its share of failures. There were ongoing efforts to streamline and reform it, and that was needed. But imploding the entire structure with no understanding of its operations and without regard for consequences was not the way to do it. Human beings—and entire communities—are affected.

There is talk of folding USAID’s remains into the State Department, but little will be accomplished if it does. It’s safe to say that aid as we know it is over, not just in the United States but globally. Philanthropy is not large enough to fill the void, so it will be interesting to see if the industry can rethink and restructure itself and find a way to continue to help those who need it.

What can the food science community do? The urgent need is funding, so donations to programs, foundations, donor agencies, and NGOs that focus on food and nutrition security will certainly help. Contributions can also come in the form of brain trust, helping surviving programs execute more efficiently and effectively in support of food systems. We must expand ongoing industry efforts to build out a safe, nutritious, resilient, robust food supply by developing outside-the-box solutions, and we should leverage our contacts with governments and representatives to advocate for a food supply that doesn’t look like food aid.

Donna Rosa works in international development and manages the IFT Food Science for Relief and Development program under the International Division at IFT. She is the 2023 recipient of IFT’s Humanitarian Award for Service to the Science of Food in honor of Elizabeth Fleming Stier.