Sec. 2. Findings
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Congress finds the following: For more than 60 years, the United States has provided consistent global leadership in addressing food security and investing in agricultural development, research, innovation and humanitarian assistance, particularly in Africa, Latin America and South Asia. Nevertheless, according to the January 2014 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the United States Intelligence Community report, lack of adequate food will be a destabilizing factor in countries important to United States national security that do not have the financial or technical abilities to solve their internal food security problems, and food and nutrition insecurity in weakly governed countries might also provide opportunities for insurgent groups to capitalize on poor conditions, exploit international food aid, and discredit governments for their inability to address basic needs .
According to the most recent estimates of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, globally more than 805,000,000 people suffer from chronic hunger. In addition, approximately 165,000,000 (or 1 in 4) children under the age of 5 are stunted, with 80 percent of the world’s stunted children living in just 14 countries. Mounting evidence from several peer-reviewed studies provide compelling evidence that undernutrition during the critical first 1,000 day window until age two leads to stunting, a lifelong condition of poor health, impaired cognitive and physical development, and diminished productivity.
The provision of folic acid as a supplement to women of childbearing years has resulted in benefits, including a reduction in incidents of autism in some populations. The African Union Commission Cost of Hunger in Africa study estimated that the economic costs associated with child undernutrition are substantial—from 2 percent to 16 percent of the gross national product
(GNP)in several African nations. For instance, this cost was estimated at $4,700,000,000 in Ethiopia in 2009 alone, which is the equivalent of 16 percent of Ethiopia’s GNP. The Feed the Future Initiative
(FTF)is the United States flagship global hunger and food security program. The primary objectives of FTF are to improve food security by increasing productivity and incomes as well as reducing hunger and to improve nutrition among 140,000,000 of the world’s poorest people in 19 priority countries. Feed the Future focuses on improving the lives of smallholder farmers, especially women and children. FTF leverages partnerships with a wide range of stakeholders—including private voluntary organizations, universities, faith-based groups, international and domestic research organizations, community-based organizations and cooperatives—harnesses new innovations and technologies, builds local capacity and sustainability, links to the global economy, and adheres to rigor, transparency and accountability. Its whole-of-government approach to food security brings together agriculture, economic growth, trade facilitation, nutrition, development, and humanitarian programs to achieve unprecedented results. For example, preliminary data indicates child stunting rates in Ethiopia have declined at a 3.3 percent annual rate over the past 3 years, such that there are currently 160,000 fewer stunted children in Ethiopia despite population growth over this period. In 2013, FTF reached more than 7,000,000 farmers and other food producers resulting in the employment of new technologies and management practices on more than 4,000,000 hectares of land. Also in 2013, the initiative reached more than 12,500,000 children with high impact nutrition interventions such as micronutrient supplementation improving both health and development. To increase responsible private agricultural investment, private sector executives and African leaders launched the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition (New Alliance). Since 2012, the New Alliance has expanded from three to ten African countries and approximately 180 African and international companies have committed to investing over $10,000,000,000 in African agriculture.