Where does agriculture development fit?
Unfortunately it’s at the bottom rung. Ag development is helping people develop their own food supply. That’s a wonderful goal for American farmers. There are no hungry peaceful people, so the best thing for American farmers is for world peace to break out. People eat better in times of peace. So why don’t we just provide money for ag development? The government money, the big money, mostly all goes to food aid because it is measurable and immediate and most bureaucracies have a strong need for both of those things. On the other hand it’s hard to report ag development. So much of this money is spent on giving away food, which actually has a negative effect on agriculture. The problem is, a bureaucrat can’t do ag development, because it’s not immediate and not measurable and therefore too big a risk to take. How does FRB fit into all this? Probably our strongest thing is that we’re a constituency group for ag development. It is an incredible act of faith for someone to go out and plant
