Senate

Senators: Global hunger a national security problem

by Jordain Carney - 05/11/15 12:26 PM ET

A bipartisan pair of senators is pushing legislation aimed at combatting chronic hunger around the world by linking the issue to national security.

Sens. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) have introduced the Global Food Security Act, which includes a requirement for the Obama administration to develop an across-the-board strategy for addressing global hunger and food insecurity.

{mosads}The bill would also authorize the administration’s Feed the Future program for five years. The program, launched in 2010, works to help bolster agriculture and economic growth in countries with the aim of reducing hunger and poverty.

The senators say a lack of affordable, healthy food, referred to as food insecurity, can have an effect on the global economy, as well as U.S. national security.

“Chronic hunger continues to be a critical problem that has a particularly devastating effect on children,” Isakson said in a statement. “The [legislation] is based on the premise that a lack of access to affordable, nutritious food impacts not only developing nations’ economies and productivity, but the international economy and U.S. national security.”

Casey said the legislation will “strengthen and improve” the Feed the Future program by making it “more effective and sustainable over time.”

The legislation would also require an annual report to Congress about the administration’s strategy to combat global hunger, the results, and how foreign assistance money is being used.

James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, told lawmakers earlier this year that global food supplies “are becoming increasingly fragile in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.”

“The risks of worsening food insecurity in regions of strategic importance to the United States will increase because of threats to local food availability, lower purchasing power, and counterproductive government policies,” he noted in his for the record statement before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Tags Bob Casey Johnny Isakson