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“TURNING OUR BACKS ON HUNGRY CHILDREN” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Agriculture was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H12881-H12882 on Dec. 8, 2003.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
TURNING OUR BACKS ON HUNGRY CHILDREN
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Renzi). Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to talk about one small program in the omnibus appropriations bill which I believe is a reflection of America's commitment to defeat terrorism, or rather its lack of commitment. It is a reflection of America's commitment to address hunger, poverty, illiteracy and ignorance; or rather, its lack of commitment; and that reflects America's commitment to help educate the children of the world, especially girls; or rather, its lack of commitment.
Tucked away inside the agriculture appropriations section of the omnibus bill is $50 million for the George McGovern-Robert Dole International Food for Education Program. McGovern-Dole began as a $300 million pilot program in 2001, providing nutritious meals to nearly 7 million children in 38 countries. The catch, these children had to attend school in order to get the meals. The McGovern-Dole program sends wheat from Illinois, Minnesota and Oregon to feed children at schools in Bolivia and Lebanon. It sends corn, milk and soybeans from Kansas and Wisconsin to feed school children in Nicaragua and Guatemala. And it sends lentils from Idaho and Washington to children we have helped return to school in Afghanistan. Beans from Colorado, rice from Texas and Louisiana, cooking oil from Florida and Tennessee, the blood, sweet and tears of America's farmers find their way to children attending humble schools around the world.
Providing food to malnourished children in schools is one of the most effective strategies to fight hunger and poverty. Where programs are offered, enrollment and attendance rates increase significantly, particularly for girls. Instead of working or searching for food to combat hunger, children have the chance to go to school. Providing food at school is a simple, but effective, means to improve literacy and help poor children break out of poverty.
The McGovern-Dole program helps us achieve many of our foreign policy goals, and communicates America's compassion to those around the world. At the end of the day, it will be programs like McGovern-Dole that will ultimately triumph over poverty and terror.
Earlier this year, in February 2003, the United States Department of Agriculture evaluated this program, and the conclusions were overwhelmingly positive. In addition to significantly reducing the incidence of hunger among school-age children, the program was also found to promote educational opportunity, especially for girls, among some of the poorest populations in the world.
Sadly, in fiscal year 2003, McGovern-Dole received only $100 million in funding, reducing the number of children served to scarcely more than 2 million world-wide in just 28 countries. In fiscal year 2004, President Bush only asked for $50 million, and if this allocation remains unaltered, the United States will literally be taking food out of the mouths of yet another one million hungry children and forcing their families to remove them from school.
The senior Senator from Kansas and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Pat Roberts, a leading proponent of the McGovern-Dole program in the other body, has stated on a number of occasions his belief that this program serves our national security interests by attacking the breeding grounds of terrorism, hunger, poverty, ignorance and despair, while at the same time ensuring that children receive meals in settings where they receive a quality education, rather than hate-filled indoctrination.
I could not agree more. But rather than expanding this program to reach even more school-aged children, to help stabilize communities devastated by HIV-AIDS, and to support HIV-AIDS orphans so they might contribute to the future of their nations rather than burden them, we are cutting it again.
On November 26, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization released its 2003 report on hunger. It found that after falling steadily during the 1990s, hunger is again on the rise. In the developing world, the number of malnourished people grew by an average of 4.5 million a year for the past 3 years. The report also found that hunger exacerbates the AIDS crisis, drives rural people into the cities, and forces women and children to trade sex for food and money.
Yet over the past 3 years, we have cut funding for the McGovern-Dole school feeding program so it is now one-sixth of what it once was. This is a disgrace, plain and simple.
Mr. Speaker, we are going in the wrong direction, not just for the children of the world, but for the security of our own Nation. I call on President Bush and congressional leadership to restore full funding in fiscal year 2005 to the George McGovern-Robert Dole International Food for Education Program.
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