Sec. 2. Findings
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Congress makes the following findings: According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (referred to in this section as the FAO ), 805,000,000 people worldwide suffer from chronic hunger. Hunger and malnutrition rob people of health and productive lives and stunt the mental and physical development of future generations. According to the January 2014 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community — the [l]ack of adequate food will be a destabilizing factor in countries important to US national security that do not have the financial or technical abilities to solve their internal food security problems ; and [f]ood 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 .
Decades of research have shown that there are multiple underlying causes of food insecurity and poor nutrition, including— the lack of availability of, access to, and consumption of nutritious food; limited investments to improve agricultural productivity; social and gender inequality; insufficient value chains and market development for farmers, including small-scale producers, which lead to post-harvest loss; and weak institutions in government and civil society. Agriculture, which comprises large portions of the total labor force in many developing countries, is an essential component of inclusive economic growth.
According to the World Bank’s 2008 World Development Report, growth in the agricultural sector has been twice as effective in reducing poverty as growth in other sectors. Women, who are often heads of households and small farmers, are especially vulnerable to food insecurity. Women frequently face stricter constraints than men in accessing markets and resources. In its 2010–2011 report, the FAO estimated that if women farmers had the same access to inputs as men, they could increase their farm yields by 20 to 30 percent.
According to the FAO, this could raise total agricultural output in developing countries by 2.5–4 percent . According to UNICEF— more than 161,000,000 children younger than 5 years of age suffer from chronic malnutrition (also referred to as stunting); and 1 in 3 women in the developing world are anemic, which leads to severe health and developmental consequences. According to the United Nations World Food Programme, poor nutrition causes 45 percent of deaths in children younger than 5 years of age.
Malnutrition can— undermine future earning potential by up to 20 percent; and inhibit economic growth by up to 3 percent of gross domestic product. According to The Cost of Hunger in Africa Study by the African Union Commission— the economic costs associated with child undernutrition are substantial, ranging from 2 percent to 16 percent of the gross national product in several African nations; and adults who suffer from stunting as children are less productive than nonstunted workers and are less able to contribute to the economy.
According to Save the Children’s 2013 Food for Thought report, if the current malnutrition rates continue, global output could be reduced by an estimated $125,000,000,000 by 2030, as the young children of today reach working age. A comprehensive approach to sustainable food and nutrition security should not only respond to emergency food shortages, but should also address malnutrition, resilience to food and nutrition insecurity, building the capacity of poor, rural populations to improve their agricultural productivity, and incomes, removing institutional impediments to agricultural development, value chain access and efficiency, including processing and storage, enhancing agribusiness development, access to markets and activities that address the specific needs and barriers facing women and small-scale producers, education, and collaborative research.
An effective, sustainable approach to combating food insecurity requires consultation with, and participation from, multiple stakeholders, including government, the private sector, international organizations, international and local nongovernmental stakeholders, grassroots and civil society organizations, faith-based organizations, and higher education research institutions. Nongovernmental organizations, faith-based organizations, community-based organizations, private voluntary organizations, academic institutions, and cooperatives can increase the effectiveness of public investments by building local capacity, strengthening food and nutrition security and resilience, and leveraging additional resources.
The United States has provided consistent global leadership in addressing food security and investing in agricultural development and humanitarian assistance. In 2010, the United States Government launched Feed the Future (referred to in this paragraph as FTF ), an initiative designed to expand and better coordinate the United States investments in improving global food security. FTF is a whole-of-government approach that works across agricultural value chains and focuses on the dual objectives of improving farmer productivity, income, and livelihoods in developing countries and improving the nutrition of women and children.
The United States Government spearheaded the creation of the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (referred to in this paragraph as the GAFSP ), which mobilizes contributions from a wide range of international donors to support the goals of FTF. As of 2014, the GAFSP had received pledges totaling $1,300,000,000 from 10 donors and reached an estimated 12,000,000 direct beneficiaries in 25 countries.