Earth Equity News

At U.N., Bill Clinton Cites U.S. Failure on Food Policy. By Charles J. Hanley, AP, October 24, 2008. "Former President Clinton told a U.N. gathering Thursday that the global food crisis shows 'we all blew it, including me'... Clinton criticized decades of policymaking by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and others, encouraged by the U.S., that pressured Africans in particular into dropping government subsidies for fertilizer, improved seed and other farm inputs as a requirement to get aid. 'Food is not a commodity like others,' Clinton said. 'We should go back to a policy of maximum food self-sufficiency. It is crazy for us to think we can develop countries around the world without increasing their ability to feed themselves.' He noted that food aid from wealthy nations could itself be a tool for bolstering agriculture in poor countries. Canada, for example, requires that 50 percent of its aid go as cash -- not as Canadian grain -- to buy crops grown locally in Africa and other recipient countries. U.S. law, however, requires that almost all U.S. aid be American-grown food, which benefits U.S. farmers but undercuts local food crops. Bush proposed earlier this year that 25 percent of future U.S. aid be given in cash. 'A bipartisan coalition (in Congress) defeated him,' Clinton said. 'He was right and both parties that defeated him were wrong.' Clinton also criticized the heavy U.S. reliance on corn to produce ethanol, which increased demand for the crop and helped drive up grain prices worldwide. 'If we're going to do biofuels, we ought to look at the more efficient kind,' he said, referring, for example, to the jatropha shrub, a nonfood source that grows on land not suitable for grain."