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Emerging markets in South Asia and Latin America represent growing markets for soybeans, but the greatest need and biggest potential return on investment in agricultural development assistance lies in sub-Saharan Africa.
ASA has been working for the last 15 years through its World Initiative for Soy in Human Health (WISHH) and with the U.S. Soybean Export Council (USSEC) to increase agricultural development in developing and emerging markets.
The global middle class is projected to reach 4.9 billion by 2030, meaning greater demand for animal products, processed foods, and higher-value commodities.
One of our chief competitors, Argentina, is benefiting from growing relationships in Africa, where Argentine investment has led to an increase in soy consumption, and the country has become a major supplier.
We believe that the training, knowledge and technology sharing, and related long-term potential for market growth of agricultural development programs will sustain the U.S. soybean industry as a leader in the global farm economy.
ASA recognizes that the vast majority of the world’s population, and its highest growth rates, are in the developing world. Many of those people suffer from hunger and malnutrition, as well as poverty and low levels of economic development. Food aid plays a critical role in mitigating these conditions; in fact, many of our best export markets were at one time food aid recipients. The ASA and the product we represent, soy, can play a role in strengthening food aid, fortifying diets and achieving the complementary goals of economic development and market growth.
ASA strongly believes that in-kind food aid remains the most sustainable tool in the food aid toolbox. In-kind food aid is strongly supported by both the American people and Members of Congress, and is critical to global food security efforts.
U.S. food aid programs have been perennially underfunded. ASA supports supplemental appropriations that compensate for shortfalls in food aid budgets, provide food for additional emergency needs, restore development assistance programs that were cut to divert food to emergencies, and replenish the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust, which is a backup reserve to provide food for emergency needs.
ASA supports efforts to increase the effectiveness and speed of delivery of US food aid, including exploration of alternative procurement and delivery methods such as pre-positioning and procurement in advance of specific call-forwards. Local and regional purchases can be a useful tool for addressing global food insecurity, but they should work in coordination with current food aid programs. In-kind donations should remain intact, and funding for local purchases should come from the appropriate foreign assistance budget.
ASA supports improving nutrition in populations suffering from hunger, malnutrition and poverty, and is committed to working through the WISHH program to fortify protein-deficient diets and achieve complementary goals of economic development.
ASA opposes a plan advanced by the Obama Administration that would replace in-kind food aid with cash aid for the following reasons:
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