Yesterday afternoon, President Bush ordered $200 million in emergency food aid to help alleviate food shortages around the developing world. The money will come from the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust, a reserve account for emergency food aid needs.

From a Reuters’ piece: “White House spokeswoman Dana Perino had said Bush, who was briefed about the food crisis during a cabinet meeting earlier on Monday, was “very concerned” and asked senior aides to look into ways the United States could help ease shortages. Washington provided more than $2.1 billion in international food aid in fiscal 2007. Perino had said the administration was sticking to its proposal to buy more of the food used in assistance programs from suppliers closer to needy countries, which would cut transportation costs. U.S. agricultural interests have resisted the idea…. At the United Nations on Monday, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said rapidly worsening food shortages around the world had “reached emergency proportions.” “We need not only short-term emergency measures to meet urgent critical needs and avert starvation in many regions across the world but also a significant increase in long-term productivity in food grain production,” Ban said.

Huge kudos to CARE for taking a bold and reasoned stand on how best to deliver food aid to developing countries. Kudos as well to the New York Times for the front page coverage of the CARE decision—how remarkable to see food aid so prominently featured in the NYT!—and its other recent coverage (subscription required) of how U.S. policy affects poor African farmers. As the NYT reported:

CARE's decision is focused on the practice of selling tons of often heavily subsidized American farm products in African countries that in some cases, it says, compete with the crops of struggling local farmers. The charity says it will phase out its use of the practice by 2009...

"If someone wants to help you, they shouldn't do it by destroying the very thing that they're trying to promote," said George Odo, a CARE official who grew disillusioned with the practice while supervising the sale of American wheat and vegetable oil in Nairobi, Kenya's capital."