Sharon Gourdji spent three months this winter down in Colombia at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) as a Fulbright Scholar studying climate impacts on bean production in Central America and adaptation options. During her stay she led a series of Decision and Policy Analysis workshops focused on climate data sources and crop statistical models.

Q&A with FSE visiting scholar and food aid expert Barry Riley.

President Barack Obama’s 2014 budget proposal promises significant food aid reform that will enable the United States to feed about 4 million more people without a significant increase of the current $1.8 billion spent on feeding the world's most hungry. Since the food aid program's inception in 1954, the U.S. has helped feed more than 1 billion people in more than 150 countries, and remains the largest provider of international food aid.

The intention of the reform is to make food aid more efficient, cost effective, and flexible. It aims to use local and regional markets to lower the cost of food and speed its delivery, and calls for the use of cash transfers and electronic food vouchers.

The proposed reforms would also end monetization—the sale of U.S. food abroad to be sold by local NGOs for cash. This practice has been criticized for hurting vulnerable communities by depriving local farmers of the incentives and opportunities to develop their own livelihoods. Several studies, including one by the Government Accountability Office, found monetization to be costly and inefficient—an average of 25 cents per taxpayer dollar spent on food aid is lost.

Barry Riley, a food aid expert and visiting fellow at the Center on Food Security and the Environment, discusses his perspective on the importance of these new reforms, their chances of passage, and the country's current role in international food aid.

Why is local procurement such an important addition to food aid reform?

An increase of funding for local and regional procurement is the most important programmatic element of the proposed reforms. It would help managers working in food security-related development programs to determine for each emergency what commodities are most appropriate and where they can be procured most quickly and inexpensively. Some studies have shown local and regional procurement of food and other cash-based programs can get food to people in critical need 11 to 15 weeks faster at a savings of 25-50 percent. Equally important, local procurement is less likely to disrupt local economic conditions, but rather promote self-sufficiency by increasing demand (often for preferred local staples) and incomes of local producers. The move to 45 percent local (and 55 percent tied) procurement is a BIG step, and one to face strong opposition from American commodity interests and U.S.-flag shippers. 

How difficult is it to ensure vouchers and electronic cash transfers are getting into the hands of people that really need the aid?

Vouchers (and similar urban coupon shops) have been used many times over the past decades as a food transfer mechanism (also sometimes used in food for work programs) enabling the recipient to trade the voucher(s) for foodstuffs when it is most convenient or when they are most needed. Electronic vouchers are new, and how well they work depends on local situations. In places like urban Latin America, Africa and India, it probably could be made to work quite well; the technology is evolving quickly that would enable this sort of transfer mechanism.  

Rural Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Malawi – probably not so well. I’m admittedly skeptical that electronic transfers of purchasing power to remote areas would be sufficient in most cases to motivate traders to move food to these hungry areas. Their risks are extremely high and, in my experience in Africa, traders will only deliver food to remote rural areas (inevitably over very bad roads) if they can command prices considerably higher than costs plus a high risk premium.

Why aren’t international food aid organizations more in favor of direct dollar support for local operating costs?

There is (and has long been) opposition among many of the NGOs to the President’s proposal to replace “monetization” with a promise of on-going direct dollar support for the local operating costs of NGO food security-related projects. They believe it will continue to be easier to get Congress to approve money to buy American food commodities to ship overseas than to get approval for dollars to ship overseas, particularly in light of tightening budgets. These NGOs have tended, over the years, to receive a sympathetic ear from Congress.

The proposal shifts oversight of the food aid program from the Agriculture Committees within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to the Foreign Affairs/Relations Committees of the State Department’s U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). What is the likelihood of Congress approving this transfer?

The chance of that happening, in this of all Congresses, is about the same as winning the Power Ball Lottery. Crusty committee chair-people are extremely sensitive to reductions in their empires and the agriculture committees – especially in the Senate – are powerful committees. On top of that, there are so many elements in the overall 2014 federal budget creating heartburn on the Hill that food aid considerations are far, far, far down the line. The best the President is likely to get in the present divided Congress are hearings and a continuing resolution of some sort.

What did you wish to see in the food aid reform proposal that was not addressed in this budget?

Change, if it ever comes, will likely be incremental and halting. I’ll be happy to see any step, however small, in the right direction. The total end of tied procurement would be at the top of my wish list. Even more important, perhaps, iron-clad, multi-year commitments of funding to food security programs intended to overcome long-term institutional impediments to achieving enduring food security in low income food deficit situations…and sticking with such commitments for 15 years.

What role does food aid play in advancing American foreign policy goals?

Most importantly, by being the single largest source of food commodities to the World Food Program in confronting disaster and emergency situations. Food support to American NGOs has been under-evaluated over the past 40 years. I’ll be talking about this later in the book I am writing, but these small projects were all that kept agricultural development (and early food security efforts) going in many small countries during the “dark decades” when international finance institutions and bilateral donors were not financing agricultural development. There are valuable on-the-ground lessons in that NGO food-assisted experience still waiting to be assessed.

Let me add, given what we know about the onset of serious climate change in the decades to come, the need to supply large amounts of food to populations suffering severe food deprivation will probably grow in the future. Where will the food come from and who will pay for those future transfers?

While the U.S. remains the largest provider of food aid, what can the EU and Canada teach the U.S. about food aid policy?

Donors hate to think that other donors have something to teach them. But, of course, they always do. The Canadian and European experience with food aid is best summed up in the way their objective has come to be restated over the past 15 or so years: not “food aid” but “aid for food.” The purpose of assistance intended to improve food security is to improve either, or both, availability and access over the long term (leave nutrition aside for a moment).

European and Canadian assistance can be much more flexible in choosing the instruments – food, cash, technical assistance, training, institutional strengthening, public policy, public-private cooperation, etc. – required to achieve a realistic food security goal which I would describe as pretty good assurance that most people can get their hands on the food they need most of the time. Commodity food aid, in some form – or the promise of its ready availability when needed – will probably need to be part of the total array of inputs required for the several years needed in particular food insecure countries to achieve that “pretty good assurance.” Europe and Canada are closer to understanding this and have become appropriately flexible in concerting resources to get it done. That’s the lesson.

Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, a Stanford law professor and expert on administrative law and governance, public organizations, and transnational security, will lead the university’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

The announcement was made in Feb. 11 by Provost John Etchemendy and Ann Arvin, Stanford’s vice provost and dean of research.

“Professor Cuéllar brings a remarkable breadth of experience to his new role as FSI director, which is reflected in his many achievements as a legal scholar and his work on diverse federal policy initiatives over the past decade,” Arvin said. “He is deeply committed to enhancing FSI’s academic programs and ensuring that it remains an intellectually rich environment where faculty and students can pursue important interdisciplinary and policy-relevant research.”

Known to colleagues as “Tino,” Cuéllar starts his role as FSI director on July 1.

Cuéllar has been co-director of FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) since 2011, and has served in the Clinton and Obama administrations. In his role as FSI director, he’ll oversee 11 research centers and programs – including CISAC – along with a variety of undergraduate and graduate education initiatives on international affairs.  His move to the institute's helm will be marked by a commitment to build on FSI’s interdisciplinary approach to solving some of the world’s biggest problems.

“I am deeply honored to have been asked to lead FSI. The institute is in a unique position to help address some of our most pressing international challenges, in areas such as governance and development, health, technology, and security,” Cuéllar said. “FSI’s culture embodies the best of Stanford – a commitment to rigorous research, training leaders and engaging with the world – and excels at bringing together accomplished scholars from different disciplines.”

Cuéllar, 40, is a senior fellow at FSI and the Stanley Morrison Professor of Law at the law school, where he will continue to teach and conduct research. He succeeds Gerhard Casper, Stanford’s ninth president and a senior fellow at FSI.

“We are deeply indebted to former President Casper for accomplishing so much as FSI director this year and for overseeing the transition to new leadership so effectively,” Arvin said.

Casper was appointed to direct the institute for one year following the departure of Coit D. Blacker, who led FSI from 2003 to 2012 and oversaw significant growth in faculty appointments and research.

Casper, who chaired the search for a new director, said Cuéllar has a “profound understanding of institutions and policy issues, both nationally and internationally.”

“Stanford is very fortunate to have persuaded Tino to become director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies,” Casper said. “He will not only be an outstanding fiduciary of the institute, but with his considerable imagination, energy, and tenacity will develop collaborative and multidisciplinary approaches to problem-solving.”

Cuéllar – who did undergraduate work at Harvard, earned his law degree from Yale and received his PhD in political science at Stanford in 2000 – has had an extensive public service record since he began teaching at Stanford Law School in 2001.

Taking a leave of absence from Stanford during 2009 and 2010, he worked as special assistant to the president for justice and regulatory policy at the White House, where his responsibilities included justice and public safety, public health policy, borders and immigration, and regulatory reform.  Earlier, he co-chaired the presidential transition team responsible for immigration.

After returning to Stanford, he accepted a presidential appointment to the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States, a nonpartisan agency charged with recommending improvements in the efficiency and fairness of federal regulatory programs.

Cuéllar also worked in the Treasury Department during the Clinton administration, focusing on fighting financial crime, improving border coordination and enhancing anti-corruption measures.

Since his appointment as co-director of CISAC, Cuéllar worked to expand the center’s agenda while continuing its strong focus on arms control, nuclear security and counterterrorism. During Cuéllar’s tenure, the center launched new projects on cybsersecurity, migration and refugees, as well as violence and governance in Latin America. CISAC also added six fellowships; recruited new faculty affiliates from engineering, medicine, and the social sciences; and forged ties with academic units across campus.

He said his focus as FSI’s director will be to strengthen the institute’s centers and programs and enhance its contributions to graduate education while fostering collaboration among faculty with varying academic backgrounds.

“FSI has much to contribute through its existing research centers and education programs,” he said. “But we will also need to forge new initiatives cutting across existing programs in order to understand more fully the complex risks and relationships shaping our world.”

In addition to Casper, the members of the search committee were Michael H. Armacost, Francis Fukuyama, Philip W. Halperin, David Holloway, Rosamond L. Naylor, Douglas K. Owens, and Elisabeth Paté-Cornell.

Soybean production has become a significant force for economic development in Brazil, but has come at the cost of expansion into non-protected forests in the Amazon and native savanna in the Cerrado. Over the past fifty years, production has increased from 26 million to 260 million tons. Area planted to soybeans has increased from roughly 1 million hectares in 1970 to more than 23 million hectares in 2010, second only to the United States.

A new study out of Stanford University examines the role of institutions and supply chain conditions in Brazil’s booming soybean industry and the relationship between soy yields and planted area. With the demand for soybeans projected to increase far into the future a better understanding of the economic and institutional factors influencing production can help policymakers better manage land use change.

Using county level data the researchers found that soy area and yields are higher in areas with high cooperative membership and credit levels, and where cheap credit sources are more accessible. Cooperatives help producers secure lower prices for inputs or higher prices for outputs through group purchases and sales. They also enable producers to store their grain past the harvesting period and sell it when prices are higher.

“This suggests that soybean production and profitability will increase as supply chain infrastructure improves in the Cerrado and Amazon,” said lead author Rachael Garrett, a PhD student in Stanford’s Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources.

The authors did not find a significant relationship between land tenure and planted area or land tenure and yields. But found that yields decline and planted area actually increases as transportation costs increase. More importantly, the study showed counties with higher yields have a higher proportion of land planted in soy.

“Policies intending to spare land through technological yield improvements could actually lead to land expansion in the absence of strong land use regulations if demand and per hectare profits are high,” said co-author Rosamond L. Naylor, director of Stanford’s Center on Food Security and the Environment.

The current Forest Code requires rural land users in the Amazon to conserve 80% of their property in a ‘Legal Reserve’, and landowners in the Cerrado to conserve 20%. Historically, illegal clearings have been common and enforcement of the Legal Reserve requirements remains poor.

While this study focuses on Brazil, the results underscore the importance of understanding how supply chains influence land use associated with cash crops in other countries. Future demand for soybeans, as well as for cash crops like Indonesian palm oil, will continue to grow as demand for cooking oil, livestock feed, and biodiesel increase with income growth and changing dietary preferences in emerging economies. 

What does drought in Kansas have to do with underutilized groundwater in sub-Saharan Africa? Potentially a lot, according to a new study by researchers with the Global Freshwater Initiative (GFI), a program of the Stanford Woods Institute. The study, co-authored by FSE senior fellow Scott Rozelle, is the first to systematically analyze and classify water crises around the world. It finds that water systems have a limited set of patterns or "syndromes" which can be classified into one of four categories: unsustainability, vulnerability, chronic scarcity or adaptation. These syndromes have their root causes in just a few factors that influence demand, supply, infrastructure and governance - a finding that challenges long-held views that freshwater issues require highly individualized solutions.