Normally, a headline like the one above would be a gross exaggeration, and it would almost never appear in a mainstream U.S. publication. But lo and behold, the actual headline of a Bloomberg story by Alan Bjerga only just barely sugarcoats the situation. As it appears online, it’s “Dead Children Linked to Aid Policy in Africa Favoring Americans.”
The basic storyline is that we have a federal program, USAID, which was started in the 1950s to handle America’s gigantic food surpluses. We take the extra food and ship it overseas to developing countries, often at reduced or no cost. It’s supposedly a win/win: American farmers sell extra crops, poor people in other countries get cheap food, their leaders love America. Except that doesn’t happen.
The rules require that all the food must be shipped from the U.S., and it doesn’t get there in time, and it’s expensive (not to mention an ecological disaster). So people who are supposed to get food starve and sometimes die. But farm and shipping lobbyists have stifled U.S. government efforts to make things simpler. Why? Because the program has basically morphed into welfare for American agribusiness megacorporations. According to Bjerga’s reporting:
Cargill Inc., Archer Daniels Midland Co. and Bunge Ltd. accounted for 47 percent of 2007 commodities spending for aid, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture…The rules also stipulate that 75 percent of the food must be transported on U.S.-flagged vessels, benefiting ship operators, including Liberty Maritime Corp., based in Lake Success, New York, and Sealift Inc., of Oyster Bay, New York. In 2007, the program’s shipping contracts were worth $385 million, according to the USDA.
This article is wonderful piece of reporting — and, according to the tagline, part one of a seven-part series. Definitely the most interesting coverage of the agriculture/farm world since the excellent Washington Post farm subsidy boondoggle stories of 2006. (I know you’re thinking — “Who cares about agriculture?” — but this is billions of your tax dollars wasted here.)
It’s too bad so few people will see this (unlike those who get, say, Vanity Fair, most Bloomberg readers blow through articles hunting for information, not thorough investigative reporting). And despite some shrewd moves by the company of late, its editorial policies still severely limit the writing style, to the point that even the most dedicated will have trouble plowing through more than 1,000 words of Bloomberg copy. Not that this article is poorly written, it’s just…well, it’s just that the writing and narrative structure don’t nearly do justice the high quality of reporting. Still, great work.
