[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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