With President Barack Obama’s budget expected on Monday, agricultural groups, including the American Soybean Association (ASA) are anticipating potential changes to the nation’s food aid programs. In late February, ASA contacted the president to oppose rumored changes in the structure of the food aid system contained in the White House budget. ASA followed the original letter with similar letters to the House Committees on Agriculture, Appropriations, Budget and Foreign Affairs, and the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture; as well as the Senate Committees on Agriculture, Budget and Foreign Relations, as well as the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture.

Proposed changes contained in the budget would restructure the nation’s foreign aid programs by eliminating the Food for Peace and Food for Progress programs and replacing them with a much smaller cash account managed by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

"The Food for Peace and Food for Progress programs provide nutritious foods to developing markets and have been a key priority for ASA for multiple years," said ASA President Danny Murphy. "We are expressly opposed to the replacement of in-kind food aid with cash aid, which takes a key market away from American producers, placing aid recipients at a potential risk by allowing them to purchase commodities from foreign suppliers whose safety and quality are unknown."

ASA has been a leading driver of a broad-based coalition to oppose the restructuring that includes representative groups in the agriculture, supply chain and logistics, labor, non-governmental organizations, and development industries.