[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 97 (Wednesday, July 14, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H5752-H5757]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  CONCERNING THE IMPORTANCE OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF FOOD IN SCHOOLS TO 
            HUNGRY OR MALNOURISHED CHILDREN AROUND THE WORLD

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and 
concur in the Senate concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 114) 
concerning the importance of the distribution of food in schools to 
hungry or malnourished children around the world.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                            S. Con. Res. 114

       Whereas there are more than 300,000,000 chronically hungry 
     and malnourished children in the world;
       Whereas more than half of these children go to school on an 
     empty stomach, and almost as many do not attend school at 
     all, but might if food were available;
       Whereas the distribution of food in schools is one of the 
     simplest and most effective strategies to fight hunger and 
     malnourishment among children;
       Whereas when school meals are offered to hungry or 
     malnourished children, attendance rates increase 
     significantly, particularly for girls;
       Whereas the distribution of food in schools encourages 
     better school attendance, thereby improving literacy rates 
     and fighting poverty;
       Whereas improvement in the education of girls is one of the 
     most important factors in reducing child malnutrition in 
     developing countries;
       Whereas girls who attend schools tend to marry later in 
     life and have fewer children, thereby helping them escape a 
     life of poverty;
       Whereas by improving literacy rates and increasing job 
     opportunities, education addresses several of the root causes 
     of terrorism;
       Whereas the distribution of food in schools increases 
     attendance of children who might otherwise be susceptible to 
     recruitment by groups that offer them food in return for 
     their attendance at extremist schools or participation in 
     terrorist training camps;
       Whereas the Global Food for Education Initiative pilot 
     program, established in 2001, donated surplus United States 
     agricultural commodities to the United Nations World Food 
     Program and other recipients for distribution to nearly 
     7,000,000 hungry and malnourished children in 38 countries;
       Whereas a recent Department of Agriculture evaluation found 
     that the pilot program created measurable improvements in 
     school attendance (particularly for girls), increased local 
     employment and economic activity, produced greater 
     involvement in local infrastructure and community improvement 
     projects, and increased participation by parents in the 
     schools and in the education of their children;
       Whereas the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 
     (Public Law 107-171, 116 Stat. 134) replaced the pilot 
     program with the McGovern-Dole International Food for 
     Education and Child Nutrition Program, which was named after 
     former Senators George McGovern and Robert Dole for their 
     distinguished work to eradicate hunger and poverty around the 
     world; and
       Whereas the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education 
     and Child Nutrition Program provides food to nearly 2,000,000 
     hungry or malnourished children in 21 countries: Now, 
     therefore, be it
       Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives 
     concurring), That Congress--
       (1) expresses its grave concern about the continuing 
     problem of hunger and the desperate need to feed hungry and 
     malnourished children around the world;
       (2) recognizes that the global distribution of food in 
     schools to children around the world increases attendance, 
     particularly for girls, improves literacy rates, and 
     increases job opportunities, thereby helping to fight 
     poverty;
       (3) recognizes that education of children around the world 
     addresses several of the root causes of international 
     terrorism;
       (4) recognizes that the world will be safer and more 
     promising for children as a result of better school 
     attendance;
       (5) expresses its gratitude to former Senators George 
     McGovern and Robert Dole for supporting the distribution of 
     food in schools around the world to children and for working 
     to eradicate hunger and poverty around the world;
       (6) commends the Department of Agriculture, the Agency for 
     International Development, the Department of State, the 
     United Nations World Food Program, private voluntary 
     organizations, non-governmental organizations, and 
     cooperatives for facilitating the distribution of food in 
     schools around the world;
       (7) expresses its continued support for the distribution of 
     food in schools around the world;
       (8) supports expansion of the McGovern-Dole International 
     Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program; and
       (9) requests the President to work with the United Nations 
     and its member states to expand international contributions 
     for the distribution of food in schools around the world.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Smith) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) each 
will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith).


                             General Leave

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that 
all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their 
remarks and include extraneous material on the Senate concurrent 
resolution under consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from New Jersey?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I

[[Page H5753]]

may consume and rise in strong support of S. Con. Res. 114, which is an 
expression of support for the McGovern-Dole International Food For 
Education Program. The companion House version of this resolution was 
introduced by the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts. By taking 
up the companion Senate version of the resolution, we will be able to 
complete congressional action on it.
  300 million children around the world suffer from chronic hunger and 
malnourishment, and this program was founded on the premise that one of 
the most effective ways to combat child hunger could at the same time 
serve to increase literacy and to promote international stability. The 
program consists of a simple measure of supplying schools in areas 
suffering from food shortages with meals for their students. It has 
been shown that this measure, in addition to providing much-needed 
nourishment for hungry children, also results in a significant rise in 
attendance rates. This translates into higher literacy rates, job 
opportunities, and a healthier local economy as these children enter 
the workforce. These improvements, in turn, address several of the root 
causes of terrorism which is strongly linked to poverty and poor 
education.
  Since its inception, the McGovern-Dole program has donated surplus 
agricultural commodities to the U.N. World Food Program, feeding nearly 
7 million children from 38 countries. I urge the Congress to pass this 
concurrent resolution as an expression of support for this admirable 
endeavor. This resolution does not involve any allocation of funds, but 
does serve to recognize the accomplishments of the program, 
accomplishments again which have aided some 7 million children with 
much-needed meals and have aided the world by promoting education and 
stability. We express our support. I hope that the membership will 
support it.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I 
rise in strong support of this legislation, and I urge all of my 
colleagues to do so as well.
  More than 150 million poor children stumble to school every day 
because their stomachs are empty and their eyes are blurry from hunger. 
Oftentimes what separates these kids from academic achievement is as 
simple as a full, healthy meal.
  Mr. Speaker, it is gratifying to note that our good friend and 
colleague from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) has strived to ensure that 
our collective attention remains on these struggling, impoverished 
children.
  The George McGovern-Robert Dole International Food For Education and 
Child Nutrition Program is one of the great success stories in our 
foreign aid framework. The McGovern-Dole International Food For 
Education and Child Nutrition Program is properly named after 
Ambassador and former Senator George McGovern and former Senator Bob 
Dole. Both of these highly respected statesmen worked tirelessly on 
world hunger issues for many years, culminating in the launching of a 
pilot program, the Global Food For Education Initiative in 2001.
  The Global Food For Education Initiative was groundbreaking in that 
it systematically addressed the problem of young students with empty 
stomachs in developing countries. By distributing surplus agricultural 
commodities from our country to some 7 million hungry and malnourished 
children in 38 countries, the Global Food Initiative was largely 
responsible for improving school attendance rates, raising literacy 
rates, and fighting poverty, particularly among young girls, in the 
schools which received assistance under the program.
  Mr. Speaker, the McGovern-Dole program is now permanent, but it alone 
cannot end world hunger; nor can it dramatically alter the performance 
of educational systems in developing countries. The program can, 
however, play a crucial role in helping our Nation meet its moral 
obligation to alleviate human suffering in places like sub-Saharan 
Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and South Asia while at the 
same time helping to support tens of thousands of American farm 
families. The McGovern-Dole program can also put spoons and textbooks 
into the hands of poor children in the most destitute corners of the 
globe so that these children will be less likely to grow up, take up 
arms, and fight over scarce resources.
  Mr. Speaker, let me conclude by suggesting that the McGovern-Dole 
program epitomizes the true American spirit and the values which we 
hold so dear. Through this program, we are able to take the bounty of 
our land and share it with the needy and the hungry across the globe. 
At the same time we are able to help sustain family farms here at home. 
It is no wonder that the program enjoys such enormous support across 
the country.
  I strongly support passage of this legislation, which our esteemed 
colleagues in the other Chamber have already passed. I urge all of my 
colleagues to do so as well.
  Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to yield such time as he may consume to 
the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), the distinguished 
sponsor of this legislation.
  (Mr. McGOVERN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks, and include extraneous material.)
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the distinguished 
gentleman from California, the ranking member of the Committee on 
International Relations, for yielding me the time and for his very 
heartfelt words. I also want to thank the chairman of the committee, 
Chairman Hyde, as well as Ranking Member Lantos, for their leadership 
and their commitment to ending hunger and for their support of U.S. 
food aid programs. I also want to extend my gratitude to Chairman Smith 
and to my colleague from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), who is the ranking Democrat 
on the agricultural appropriations committee, for all of their 
incredible efforts to combat hunger here in the United States and 
around the world. It was through their bipartisan leadership that the 
George McGovern-Robert Dole International Food For Education and Child 
Nutrition Program came to be established in the farm bill 
reauthorization.
  Over the past few years, I have learned a great deal about global 
child hunger from my House colleagues, from former Senators George 
McGovern and Bob Dole, from our hardworking officers at USDA and USAID, 
from the staff of the U.N. World Food Program, and from the many 
organizations that carry out U.S.-funded school feeding and development 
projects around the world, groups like Catholic Relief Services, World 
Vision, Save the Children, CARE, Land O'Lakes, Counterpart 
International and Mercy Corps, to name but a few.
  I now know there are over 800 million people around the world for 
whom chronic hunger is a way of life, and, too often, a way of death. 
Over 300 million of these people are children and over half of these 
children do not attend school, mainly girls.
  Every year, 6 million children in our world die of hunger-related 
causes. As David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, has stated 
so eloquently, ``Even one child starving to death is a tragedy. Six 
million is a global catastrophe and a preventable one.''
  Last November, the U.N. food and agriculture organization released 
its 2003 report on hunger. It found that after falling steadily during 
the 1990s, hunger is again on the rise. In the developing world, the 
number of malnourished people grew by an average of 4.5 million a year 
for the past 3 years. The report also found that hunger exacerbates the 
AIDS crisis, drives rural people into the cities, and forces women and 
children to trade sex for food and money.
  But we can help break that cycle. We have learned from projects 
carried out around the world that school feeding programs are one of 
the most effective strategies to combat hunger and poverty and convince 
poor families to send their children to school. When programs are 
offered, enrollment and attendance rates increase significantly, 
particularly for girls. Instead of working or searching for food to 
combat hunger, children have the chance to go to school. Providing food 
at school is a simple, but effective, means to improve literacy and 
help poor children break out of poverty.
  With the support of President Clinton and Secretary of Agriculture 
Dan Glickman, the McGovern-Dole program

[[Page H5754]]

began as a $300 million pilot program in 2001, providing nutritious 
meals in school settings to nearly 7 million children in 38 countries.

                              {time}  2000

  Wheat from Illinois, Minnesota, and Oregon went to feed children at 
schools in Bolivia and Lebanon. Corn, milk, and soybeans from farmers 
in Kansas and Wisconsin fed children in Nicaragua and Guatemala. 
Lentils from Idaho and Washington helped children return to school in 
Afghanistan. Beans from Colorado, rice from Texas and Louisiana, 
cooking oil from Florida and Tennessee, the bounty of America's farmers 
found its way to children attending humble schools around the world.
  Mr. Speaker, global hunger, ignorance, and poverty are threats to our 
national security, and they are threats to our national spirit. How can 
our world be secure if hunger drives desperate people to ideological 
extremes? I firmly believe the McGovern-Dole program serves our 
national interests by attacking the breeding grounds of terrorism: 
hunger, poverty, ignorance, and despair, while at the same time 
ensuring that children receive meals in settings where they receive a 
quality education, not hate-filled indoctrination. At the end of the 
day, it will be programs like McGovern-Dole that ultimately triumph 
over poverty and terror.
  S. Con. Resolution 114 commends the important role these programs 
play in the fight against hunger and in promoting basic education. It 
supports the expansion of the McGovern-Dole program and urges the 
President to work with the U.N. and other nations to increase 
international support for school feeding programs. By expanding the 
McGovern-Dole program, we can reach even more school-age children. We 
can help stabilize communities devastated by HIV/AIDS, and we can help 
developing nations achieve self-sufficiency and prosperity.
  Mr. Speaker, international school feeding programs work. I commend 
this bill to my colleagues, and I urge them to support it.
  I thank the gentleman from California for yielding me this time.
  I want to thank the gentleman from California, the Ranking Member of 
the International Relations Committee Mr. Lantos, for yielding me time. 
And I especially want to thank Chairman Hyde and Ranking Member Lantos 
for their leadership and commitment to ending hunger and for their 
support of U.S. food aid programs. It was through their bipartisan 
leadership that the George McGovern-Robert Dole International Food for 
Education and Child Nutrition Program came to be established in the 
farm bill reauthorization.
  Over the past few years, I have learned a great deal about global 
child hunger from my House colleagues; from former Senators George 
McGovern and Bob Dole; from our hard-working officers at USDA and 
USAID; from the staff of the UN World Food Program; and from the many 
organizations that carry out US-funded school feeding and development 
projects around the world--groups like Catholic Relief Services, World 
Vision, Save the Children, CARE, Land O' Lakes, Counterpart 
International, and Mercy Corps, to name but a few.
  I now know there are more than 800 million people around the world 
for whom chronic hunger is a way of life, and too often, a way of 
death. Over 300 million of these people are children, and over half of 
these children do not attend school, mainly the girls.
  Every year, 6 million children in our world die of hunger-related 
causes. As David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, has stated 
so eloquently: ``Even one child starving to death is a tragedy. Six 
million is a global catastrophe--and a preventable one.''
  Last November, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization released its 
2003 report on hunger. It found that after falling steadily during the 
1990s, hunger is again on the rise. In the developing world, the number 
of malnourished people grew by an average of 4.5 million a year for the 
past three years. The report also found that hunger exacerbates the 
AIDS crisis, drives rural people into the cities, and forces women and 
children to trade sex for food and money.
  But we can help break that cycle. We have learned from projects 
carried out around the world that school feeding programs are one of 
the most effective strategies to combat hunger and poverty, and 
convince poor families to send their children to school. When programs 
are offered, enrollment and attendance rates increase significantly, 
particularly for girls. Instead of working or searching for food to 
combat hunger, children have the chance to go to school. Providing food 
at school is a simple but effective means to improve literacy and help 
poor children break out of poverty.
  With the support of President Clinton and Secretary of Agriculture 
Dan Glickman, the McGovern-Dole program began as a $300 million pilot 
program in 2001, providing nutritious meals in school settings to 
nearly 7 million children in 38 countries. Wheat from 
Illinois, Minnesota, and Oregon went to feed children at schools in 
Bolivia and Lebanon. Corn, milk and soy beans from farmers in Kansas 
and Wisconsin fed children in Nicaragua and Guatemala. Lentils from 
Idaho and Washington helped children return to school in Afghanistan. 
Beans from Colorado, rice from Texas and Louisiana, cooking oil from 
Florida and Tennessee--the bounty of America's farmers found its way to 
children attending humble schools around the world.

  Mr. Speaker, global hunger, ignorance and poverty are threats to our 
national security, and they are threats to our national spirit. How can 
our world be secure if hunger drives desperate people to ideological 
extremes? I firmly believe the McGovern-Dole program serves our 
national security interests by attacking the breeding grounds of 
terrorism--hunger, poverty, ignorance and despair--while at the same 
time ensuring that children receive meals in settings where they 
receive a quality education, not hate-filled indoctrination. At the end 
of the day, it will be programs like McGovern-Dole that ultimately 
triumph over poverty and terror.
  S. Con. Res. 114 commends the important role these programs play in 
the fight against hunger and in promoting basic education. It supports 
the expansion of the McGovern-Dole program, and urges the president to 
work with the UN and other nations to increase international support 
for school feeding programs.
  By expanding the McGovern-Dole program we can reach even more school-
age children; we can help stabilize communities devastated by HIV/AIDS; 
and we can help developing nations achieve self-sufficiency and 
prosperity.
  Mr. Speaker, many individuals and organizations deserve mention for 
the role they played in launching the Global Food for Education 
Initiative (GFEI) pilot program and for establishing the George 
McGovern-Robert Dole International Food for Education and Child 
Nutrition Program. First and foremost are the two gentlemen who are the 
namesakes of this program, former Senators McGovern and Dole. They have 
dedicated their lives to ending hunger and continue to be an 
inspiration to me and all my congressional colleagues on these issues. 
Another leader in this effort is former Secretary of Agriculture Dan 
Glickman, who had seen first hand the benefits of basic school feeding 
programs funded through USDA under its 416(b) Commodity Credit 
Corporation commodity surplus program. He knew these programs needed to 
expand and reach even more children, schools and communities, and he 
embraced the vision presented to him by Senators McGovern, Dole and 
myself. Secretary Glickman helped to organize a meeting at the White 
House with the President and his foreign policy and national security 
staff, as well as representatives from USAID and USDA. I remember 
President Clinton, upon conclusion of the formal presentation of the 
plan for expanded school feeding programs, looking up and saying, 
``This is a simple concept that could have a great impact. Let's make 
it happen.'' And that is how the White House came to launch the $300 
million pilot program just a few months later.
  The GFEI pilot program was actually implemented under the Bush 
Administration and Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman. I would be 
remiss in my remarks should I fail in offering my praise to Mary 
Chambliss, Deputy Administrator of USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service/
Export Credit Department. She and her staff took the description of an 
initiative formally announced by President Clinton at the July 2000 G-8 
Summit in Okinawa, Japan, and turned it into a living and breathing 
reality, one which has benefited more than 7 million children world-
wide.

  Many Members of Congress in this House and in the other body have 
been true leaders in helping to build a genuinely broad, bipartisan 
coalition in support of the McGovern-Dole program. In particular, I 
would like to express my appreciation to Representatives Jo Ann 
Emerson, Marcy Kaptur, Doug Bereuter, Jim Leach, Don Manzullo, George 
Nethercutt, Leonard Boswell, Tim Johnson and Mark Green, who along with 
former Members of Congress Tony Hall, John Thune and Eva Clayton, were 
the original cosponsors of legislation to create the McGovern-Dole 
school feeding program. In the other body, leadership was provided by 
Senators, Dick Durbin, Richard Lugar, Patrick Leahy, Mike DeWine, Tom 
Harkin, Tom Daschle, Byron Dorgan, Edward Kennedy and Herbert Kohl.
  Since the establishment of the McGovern-Dole program, especially in 
efforts to increase funding to maintain and establish these global

[[Page H5755]]

school feeding programs, additional Members of Congress have stepped 
forward and taken leadership roles, including Representatives Frank 
Wolf and Tom Lantos and Senators Pat Roberts, Sam Brownback, Elizabeth 
Dole, and Hillary Clinton.
  Mr. Speaker, the McGovern-Dole program and the initial pilot program 
would not have been successful were it not for the dedication and 
experience of the U.S. private voluntary organizations that implement 
these programs around the world--many of which I noted earlier in my 
remarks--and the United Nations World Food Program. My staff and I have 
visited several of these programs in Indonesia, Colombia and elsewhere, 
and we all owe them our gratitude and admiration for their work.
  In addition, I would like to thank several other groups that helped 
me understand the needs and requirements of high-quality school feeding 
programs and how such programs might effectively reduce hunger among 
the world's children and attract them to enrolling and staying in 
school. These organizations include Friends of the World Food Program, 
Bread for the World, and Food Aid Coalition, Land O'Lakes, the American 
Soybean Association, the National Farmers Union, the American Farm 
Bureau Association, and the American School Food Service Association.
  No individual program can end hunger, not here at home and certainly 
not around the world. But I believe that it is possible to end hunger, 
especially hunger among children, if we simply have the political will 
to make it happen. The McGovern-Dole school feeding program and other 
U.S.-funded school feeding and food security programs are vital 
components in this effort, and I am grateful to be part of the 
bipartisan congressional coalition in support of these programs.
  Mr. Speaker, international school feeding programs work. I commend 
this bill to my colleagues and I urge them to vote in support of S. 
Con. Res. 114.
  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), who has been a fighter for children 
across the globe during her distinguished career here in this body.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the eloquent gentleman from 
California (Mr. Lantos) for yielding me this time and thank him for his 
great work on this and so many other issues, including humanitarian 
concerns around our globe. Also to the gentleman from Illinois 
(Chairman Hyde) and the gentleman from New Jersey (Chairman Smith), who 
is with us here tonight, for moving this legislation, and to the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), who has been such a 
faithful leader as well. It is a joy to be with them.
  Mr. Speaker, I will share a story about the idea that anchors this 
program and how it originally started. In February of 2000, I had the 
pleasure of visiting with Senator George McGovern while he served as 
U.S. Ambassador to the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome. At 
that time he shared with me an editorial that he had written that he 
was hoping would get published in the Washington Post at the end of 
that month, and it was.
  Referring to our own school lunch program here in our country, he 
asked a simple but provocative question, this man of the world and a 
decorated fighter pilot from World War II. He said, ``Why not provide a 
similar modest meal every day for every needy child in the world?'' He 
was thinking big, as he always thought big, and he knew that hunger and 
poverty was at the root of desperation, that it is at the root of what 
makes young people susceptible to the siren cry of all that is 
horrible, including terrorism. And he knew this before 9-11 because he 
had worked on it throughout his career, from his days as director of 
the Food for Peace Program through his days in the Senate and to this 
very moment as one of the world's most eloquent proponents on behalf of 
people who ask only for a fair chance at a decent life.
  We came back to Washington, and when Secretary of Agriculture Dan 
Glickman was Secretary and Under Secretary for Farm and International 
Agricultural Programs was Gus Schumacher, we were able to move 
legislation through the administration and this House as part of the 
fiscal 2001 appropriation bill to support the beginnings of this 
program. Later that summer, President Clinton announced the creation of 
the program, encouraging other nations to join with us; and this all 
culminated in the McGovern-Dole Global Food Program, established as one 
of the greatest accomplishments of the 2002 Farm bill.
  We started with $300 million, but unfortunately that declined every 
year, bottoming out in the current fiscal year of $56 million. The bill 
that we had on the floor yesterday raised it to a level of $75 million 
but serving only a fraction of the need that Senator McGovern had 
originally imagined; that well over $1 billion, we spend all of that on 
weapons, but here is food. Just imagine if we could put food in schools 
that would counter the madrassas in some of the most troubled parts of 
the world, what a difference we could make.
  So I am pleased to join with my colleagues tonight to commend the 
gentlemen for bringing this wonderful bill to the floor to recognize 
the McGovern-Dole Global Food Program and to provide the kind of 
funding and support for it that could affect the lives of literally 
millions and millions of the young people of the Earth who will be our 
leaders of the future.
  So as Senator McGovern said in his original editorial, there is no 
more useful task in the modern world than feeding the children on whom 
the future depends, and it is the right thing to do.
  I include the following material for the Record:

           [From the Washington Post Web site, Feb. 27, 2000]

              Too Many Children Are Hungry. Time for Lunch

                          (By George McGovern)

       Rome.--On a recent fact-finding trip through Africa that 
     took me to some of the most painfully destitute areas of the 
     planet, I visited villages where conditions were 
     heartbreaking: overcrowded shacks, no water safe to drink, no 
     medical care, primitive agriculture, emaciated women and 
     children. What touched my soul most deeply was one village 
     school. Hungry youngsters yawned or stared vacantly, 
     seemingly unable to concentrate on anything other than their 
     empty stomachs. During recess, there was no childish 
     laughter, no running or playing--only the same lethargy and 
     weariness that pervaded the classroom.
       The saddest part of that scene was its terrible 
     familiarity. In the 40 years that I have observed food 
     assistance programs, I have seen similar poverty in Asia and 
     Latin America. Conditions are nearly as bad in parts of 
     Russia and the Balkans. There are now an estimated 790 
     million chronically hungry people in the world, of whom 300 
     million are school-age or younger. Most of them live in 
     Africa and Asia.
       We in the United States can do something about it. We can 
     emulate one of the most beneficial programs ever launched on 
     behalf of children--the U.S. school lunch program. For the 
     past 22 years--through legislation I cosponsored with former 
     senator Robert Dole--America has provided a nutritious meal 
     to almost any student who can't afford one; currently, about 
     27 million children are fed every day. By any reasonable 
     criteria, this program has been a smashing success. It 
     attracts children to school and keeps them there under 
     conditions in which they are able to learn and grow.
       Why not provide a similar modest meal every day for every 
     needy child in the world? Could not such a program of health, 
     healing and hope be the centerpiece of the current U.N. 
     commitment to cut world hunger in half by the year 2015?
       The U.N. World Food Program already has launched some 
     efforts in this direction. After considerable discussion with 
     some of the world's experts in nutrition and food 
     assistance, I have concluded that it would be both 
     practical and right for the United States, within the U.N. 
     framework, to take the lead in organizing a worldwide 
     school lunch program.
       There is precedent for success in this approach. In 1961, 
     shortly after President John F. Kennedy named me the first 
     director of U.S. Food for Peace, I received a telephone call 
     from a dean at the University of Georgia. He told me that in 
     his judgment, the federal school lunch program had done more 
     to advance the development of the South than any other 
     federal program. He pointed out that malnourished children 
     seldom make good strudents--it's difficult to concentrate on 
     reading, writing and arithmetic when you are hungry. He 
     concluded: ``If I had to preserve one federal program above 
     all others, I would choose the school lunch program.'' And he 
     urged me to draw on its example in extending Food for Peace 
     help to our fellow humans abroad.
       I soon found a place to experiment with the dean's 
     conviction--the poverty stricken Puno area of Peru. Puno had 
     an illiteracy rate of 90 percent--unsurprising, since nine 
     out of 10 students dropped out of school by the sixth grade. 
     Even those brief years of education were blighted by 
     malnutrition, lethargy and dulled minds.
       With the cooperation of a remarkable priest, the Rev. John 
     McClellan of the Maryknoll Fathers, I launched a school lunch 
     program in Puno in October 1961. The United States made the 
     food available, and the Maryknoll Fathers--with the help of 
     local parents--prepared and served it. The government of 
     Prime Minister Pedro Beltran built kitchens and dining halls 
     and assisted with distribution. Forty-five Peace Corps 
     workers contributed to the effort.

[[Page H5756]]

       We began by feeding 30,000 children. Within six months, 
     school attendance had increased 40 percent and academic 
     performance had improved by 50 percent. That kind of success 
     inspired expansion: By 1965, Peru was feeding more than 1 
     million schoolchildren a day.
       And it wasn't just happening in Peru. Three years after the 
     first program was launched in Puno, Food for Peace was 
     providing 12 million children in Latin America with meals. 
     Today, with local governments carrying most of the cost, the 
     figure has more than doubled.
       It is difficult to locate an informed person in Latin 
     America who doesn't sing the praises of the school lunch 
     program. Study after study shows that a higher percentage of 
     children attend school and remain through graduation when 
     lunch is provided. Academic performance improves. Children 
     are not only smarter but stronger.
       And there is another benefit in an overcrowded world: As a 
     society's educational level rises--especially among girls--
     the birthrate goes down. Education is the surest foundation 
     for responsible family planning.
       Some may ask: Can the United States, even with the help of 
     other nations, afford all this? What will it cost American 
     taxpayers? These are legitimate questions, and they deserve 
     thoughtful answers.
       Having studied a number of cost analyses, I believe that we 
     could launch a start-up program, providing lunches to 
     millions of hungry schoolchildren not now being fed, for 
     about $3 billion a year. This would expand some existing U.N. 
     and local programs, and would include a three-tiered price 
     system similar to the one in the United States: Depending on 
     what their families can afford, students pay all, part or 
     none of the cost of their meal. That $3 billion would be 
     provided in the same way as funding for most international 
     relief programs--with 25 percent paid by the United States, 
     and the rest by other donor nations.
       In addition, I would recommend that the United Nations copy 
     another wonderfully successful American program--the 
     supplementary feeding program for pregnant and nursing women 
     and their children below the age of 5, known as WIC. It is in 
     these early years that a child is most likely to be scarred 
     and handicapped for life by malnutrition. I estimate that a 
     serious attempt at beginning a worldwide WIC program would 
     cost close to $1 billion a year, with the United States again 
     paying 25 percent.
       For both programs, therefore, the initial cost to American 
     taxpayers would be about $1 billion a year. Over the 
     subsequent years, the programs would grow in scope--and 
     presumably in cost.
       But the United States would benefit, too. First, since most 
     of the U.S. contribution would be in the form of agricultural 
     commodities, the market for cereal grain, dairy products and 
     livestock would be strengthened. Second, since U.S. law 
     requires that at least half of all foreign assistance must be 
     carried in American ships, our Merchant Marine would benefit 
     materially--as would the trucks and trains carrying the 
     commodities to ports for shipment.
       Over the past year, I have talked with ranchers and farmers 
     in my home state, South Dakota, and in Montana who tell me 
     they can't hold on for more than another year or two 
     unless there is some relief from price-depressing 
     surpluses. Ironically, it is the efficiency and 
     productivity of American farmers, the best in the world, 
     that breeds the low prices now threatening to put them out 
     of business. It would be a happier irony if feeding hungry 
     children became the means of helping to save American 
     farmers, ranchers and dairymen.
       Other farm surplus countries such as France, Canada and 
     Australia would experience similar benefits.
       We now that the emergency demands of World Wars I and II 
     greatly stimulated the farm and industrial economies of the 
     United States. The cost of these gigantic wars was enormous--
     vastly larger than what is proposed here for a war against 
     hunger. But they greatly enriched the American economy. We 
     could expect proportionate benefits from a school lunch 
     program.
       More than half a century ago, I flew 35 missions as a 
     bomber pilot, operating from a base in Cerignola, Italy. I 
     never doubted the soundness of our cause in helping to smash 
     Hitler's terrible war machine. But I'm especially proud of my 
     final mission: At the end of the war, we filled our bombers 
     with unused military rations and flew them to the devastated 
     cities of Europe. I will never forget the grateful people, 
     some of them our recent enemies, waiting eagerly to receive 
     and distribute the boxes of surplus food. I imagined some of 
     these same people taking cover from our bombs only a short 
     time earlier, now looking into the skies for hope and 
     deliverance.
       That postwar food delivery was practical: There would have 
     been no point in hauling unused C-rations back to the United 
     States. It was effective: We fed people who might have 
     starved, and we began the process of rebuilding war-torn 
     Europe. Most of all, it was the right thing to do.
       For the same reasons, we should enlist today in the effort 
     to provide a daily meal to every needy student around the 
     world. Having returned to Italy after so many years, I 
     believe that my mission again is practical: Americans produce 
     more food than we can eat or profitably sell. It can be 
     effective: There is no more useful task in the modern world 
     than feeding the children on whom its future depends. And it 
     is the right thing to do.
       George McGovern is the U.S. ambassador to the United 
     Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture in Rome. His book, 
     ``Ending World Hunger in Our Time,'' will be published this 
     fall by Simon & Schuster.

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis), who is always in the forefront of 
all humanitarian endeavors.
  (Mr. DAVIS of Illinois asked and was given permission to revise and 
extend his remarks.)
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman 
from California for yielding me this time.
  I rise in strong support of H. Con. Res. 422, concerning the 
importance of the distribution of food in schools to hungry or 
malnourished children around the world. This bill is a step forward in 
giving hope to many hungry and malnourished children around the world.
  There are more than 300 million chronically hungry and malnourished 
children around the world, and more than half of them go to school on 
an empty stomach. Distribution of food in schools is one of the 
simplest and most effective ways to fight hunger and malnourishment 
among children.
  Providing school meals to hungry or malnourished children increases 
and encourages attendance rates significantly, especially for girls. In 
developing countries, illiterate girls often marry as early as 11 years 
old and before the age of 18 may have as many as seven children. 
Studies have shown that girls who attend schools tend to marry later in 
life, practice greater restraint in spacing births, and have an average 
of 50 percent fewer children.
  In a study by the International Food Policy Research Institute, it 
found that 44 percent of the reduction in child malnutrition between 
1970 and 1995 was attributed to an increase in women's education, which 
shows what we all know: Education is one of the major keys in fighting 
poverty. So when we supply meals to school children, not only do we 
reduce illiteracy but we also help fight poverty.
  I simply rise in strong support. I commend the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) for his introduction of this legislation.
  Mrs. EMERSON. Mr. Speaker, S. Con. Res. 114, sponsored by my good 
friend and colleague from Massachusetts, Jim McGovern, calls to 
attention one of America's most important humanitarian missions--
alleviating the suffering of the world's starving children. Hunger 
claims more lives worldwide than HIV and AIDS, malaria, and 
tuberculosis combined; a tragedy.
  Critical to feeding starving children is the McGovern-Dole 
International Food and Education and Child Nutrition Program, which 
provides hungry children around the world at least one nutritious meal 
each day in a school setting. This program has proven effective at 
reducing child hunger, increasing academic attendance and performance, 
and strengthening community commitment to education.
  The McGovern-Dole program currently feeds two million children a 
year. That's two million children who will attend school. Two million 
children who will not have to suffer through an afternoon of stomach 
pain from too little nutrition. Two million children who will grow up 
knowing that America cares, that America is willing to help those most 
in need. Today, more than ever, it is vital that individuals living in 
impoverish areas across the world look to the United States as an ally, 
and more than that, a partner.
  For these reasons, I am encouraged to see that the Agriculture 
Appropriations bill for the upcoming fiscal year, that the House 
overwhelmingly passed yesterday, included a $25 million increase for 
the McGovern-Dole program. Chairman Henry Bonilla of the Agriculture 
Appropriations Subcommittee, of which I am a member, demonstrated his 
compassion for the world's malnourished children by supporting the 
President's proposed increase for this program. This increase will make 
a significant difference.
  This resolution is right on target: A humanitarian crisis exists in 
the world and the McGovern-Dole program is part of the solution. I urge 
my colleagues to support this meaningful resolution.
  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to support this 
legislation. I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the 
balance of my time.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for 
time, and I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida). The 
question is on the motion offered by

[[Page H5757]]

the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) that the House suspend the 
rules and concur in the Senate concurrent resolution, S. Con. Res. 114.
  The question was taken.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds of 
those present have voted in the affirmative.
  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the 
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be 
postponed.

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