As US Congress debates a revised farm bill, poor, hungry farmers in Africa who were promised food for work on an irrigation project are awaiting payment that may never come. The New York Times reports that the Bush administration is advocating allowing purchase of food in foreign countries, to deliver aid quickly and give a boost to local economies. But opposition from agricultural states is firm to the current policy of only shipping US food, which benefits American farmers and shipping interests. The impasse leaves hundreds of thousands hungry and dying.

THE PRICE OF AID goes in depth to the bureaucratic process of US food aid policy.

Labels: Africa, food aid, Kenya, politics