Press Releases

"This is simply a bad amendment. It eliminates funding for one of our signature programs to reduce childhood hunger in the world.

"I helped establish the George McGovern-Robert Dole International Food for Education Program - first as a pilot project in 2000 and then as a permanent program in the 2002 farm bill. It has always had strong bipartisan support, including Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson and then-Congressmen, now-Senators John Thune and Jerry Moran.

"McGovern-Dole has one basic goal: Provide at least one nutritious meal to some of the world's most vulnerable children in a school setting. It has reduced the incidence of hunger among school-age children. It has increased school enrollments and attendance. It has increased the support of families and communities for education, especially for girls.

"McGovern-Dole is a proven success. Instead of cutting its funding, let alone eliminating it, we should be scaling it up.

"The cuts to McGovern-Dole already in the bill would end school meals for more than 400,000 children. Eliminating the funding would, literally, take the food out of the mouths of over 5 million of the world's most vulnerable children.

"Mr. Chairman, it's bad enough to ignore hungry children. It's even worse to give a hungry child a meal - to give their parents hope for a better future - and then take it away.

"These are not just numbers in a bill. These are real living, breathing human beings - real children who are in school - many for the very first time - because the U.S. is working with local communities to advance education and nutrition.

"I've visited some of these programs around the world. I respectfully suggest to those who want to eliminate them to first go see them with their own eyes - what they are doing on the ground, look these children, their parents, their teachers, their community leaders in the eye - and make sure you want to tell them you don't care if they go hungry or get a chance to go to school.

"In Colombia, I visited a program on the outskirts of Bogota. On barren hillsides, surrounded by shanties housing thousands of internally displaced families, children were receiving a school breakfast and lunch. Mothers and grandmothers were training as cooks, preparing the meals. Clearly visible in the cafeteria were USAID bags of grains, beans and lentils.

"One mother came up to me and said, -Please thank the American people when you go back home. I couldn't feed my children. I couldn't send them to school. I was afraid my son was going to join the paramilitaries or the guerrillas just to get food. Now my son is getting fed and he's staying in school. Please tell the American people thank you.-

Opposing an amendment to the Agriculture Appropriations bill that would defund the McGovern-Dole food program, Congressman McGovern talks about his experiences with the program.

"In Nairobi, Kenya, in the largest slum in the world, I went to a McGovern-Dole breakfast and lunch program. I was amazed by the students' energy and achievements. The school principal showed me how they store and prepare the U.S. commodities that feed her students, and how all the students know that this is a program from the people of the United States.

"I ate a cereal mush made from yellow peas grown by American farmers. The kids dug into this food like it was manna from heaven. One little boy would take a bite, and then scoop a small amount out of his bowl and put it into his pockets. He was taking food home to his younger siblings who don't get anything to eat.

"Outside of Nairobi is a school for girls where McGovern-Dole provides a hot lunch. I helped cook and serve the meal of U.S. bulgar wheat and locally grown vegetables. One student told me how grateful she was to go to school and eat every day.

"She grew up in a village over a hundred miles away. When she was twelve, her father told her she had to marry a much older man. She refused. Her father ordered her to go to her uncle's house, get his machete and bring it back to him. She knew he was going to kill her. She ran away, walking alone for days, because she had heard of this school. When I met her she was fifteen, healthy and well-fed, and at the top of her class. I knew I was talking to someone who could be president some day. In the very best way, this young woman will never forget us.

"And in the very worst way, when we take food away from children, families and schools, those communities will never forget us either. They won't forget that we took away their children's future. I wouldn't forget if it were my child. Would you?

"Mr. Chairman - there are many ways to advance U.S. national security and economic interests abroad. Education and child nutrition are very much at the top of the list.

"Support the McGovern-Dole program. Reject this amendment."