Bush tries again to reform food aid

According to Bloomberg

The Bush administration is reviving a plan to buy some of the food it uses for overseas aid from foreign rather than domestic farmers, and is courting the support of charities that helped sink the idea last year.

We have discussed food aid before on this blog, and reported the prediction that food aid reform would be included in the 2007 budget. It is astonishing that the charities should have put their own institutional interests in maintaining the status quo ahead of the interests of recipients of food aid.  The Bloomberg report, they are coming under pressure to rethink:

Some of the charity groups ... say they are ready to listen now, partly because outside pressures, such as the WTO talks and funding cuts, are already pushing changes to the system.

My own view is that we should keep up the pressure on the NGOs and charities to stop hiding behind agricultural interests and to come out in support of a sensible reform program.