본문 내용으로 건더뛰기

KDI 경제교육·정보센터

ENG
  • 경제배움
  • Economic

    Information

    and Education

    Center

최신자료
Food Aid Cargo Preference and Sourcing Mandates: How More Rent-Seeking Legislation Could Waste Precious Resources
AEI
2025.01.20
Since 2012, legislative and administrative changes have modestly improved the ability of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to operate humanitarian international food aid programs efficiently.
Currently, 50 percent of all food aid shipments must be carried on US-flagged vessels. An updated empirical analysis using USDA and USAID data on individual food aid shipments between 2013 and 2024 finds that this substantially affects shipping costs. US-flagged vessels, on average, charge ocean freight rates that are approximately 40 percent higher for packaged goods and 100 percent higher for bulk shipments than comparable shipments not subject to cargo preference restrictions.
Combined with the requirement that almost all US food aid be “in-kind” and sourced in the United States, the current cargo preference mandate makes food aid programs significantly less effective. Annually, these constraints prevent US aid agencies from helping an additional two to four million desperately poor children and adults avoid the short- and long-term consequences of extended hunger and malnutrition.
New legislative proposals in Congress, including the American Farmers Feed the World Act and the Shipbuilding and Harbor Infrastructure for Prosperity and Security for America Act, seek to increase the share of food aid resources spent on food to the detriment of other program activities and increase cargo preference requirements from 50 percent to 100 percent of shipments. Such changes would substantially decrease the programs’ efficiency.