The Blind Pig Finds an Acorn

Not even President Bush, no matter how desperately he strives, can manage to be wrong all the time ... and he made the right decision this week when he quickly responded to an emergency call from the World Bank for $500 million more in food aid by pledging $200 million more from the U.S.

There has been a fair bit of discussion recently about the rising cost of food here at home, but matters are far worse elsewhere, and there have been outbreaks of food riots in Egypt and Mozambique. As the cost of fuel helps drive prices higher, things will only degenerate.

The most important part of the President's statement, however, wasn't the pledge of more money, but rather the push to loosen current U.S. law, which requires all food purchased for aid purposes to be bought here and shipped to its foreign destination.

That requirement limits the effectiveness of the aid in a multitude of ways. Not only does the greater shipping distance mean less money spend on actual food (particularly given the increased cost of shipping is a major cause of the current crises) and more time for food to arrive where it is needed, but it also prevents the ancillary benefits which might come from providing some monetary influx to farmers in African nations, for the companies there which would handle the shipping, etc.

It all makes sense ... unless you are, say, a member of the US shipping industry, in which case the suffering of people of a different nationality means little compared to the extra money in your wallet ... as group representative Gloria Tosi told the NY Times last fall, expecting shippers to give up some of their little pot of gold, even if it might save some hundreds or thousands of lives, is "politically naive".

She's right of course ... but it's also the right thing to do. Let's hope this is an issue the President and Congress can manage to find some actual bi-partisan agreement on.