SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
The Trump administration's fast dismantling of government agencies is triggering some opposition. The efforts to eliminate the U.S. Agency for International Development are on hold, at least for now. As Frank Morris of member station KCUR reports, the attempt to close it has sparked legislation in Kansas.
FRANK MORRIS, BYLINE: When Elon Musk at least temporarily shuttered USAID, a program within it called Food for Peace immediately shut down. That's sparked anxiety from Afghanistan to South Sudan to here in Kansas, the so-called breadbasket of the world.
KIM BARNES: I'm Kim Barnes. I'm the CFO of Pawnee County Co-op in Larned, Kansas.
MORRIS: Barnes has a problem. The towering white grain elevators he oversees are holding almost $5 million worth of grain sorghum, or milo, that nobody wants to buy.
BARNES: Well, the last milo that was sold of any value was Food for Peace, and that was in the month of December. Otherwise, there is no market.
MORRIS: No market for hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of grain lingering in storage nationwide. Food for Peace buys about $2 billion worth of American milo, wheat, rice and lentils every year and distributes that food to countries in need - or it did. When the Trump administration stopped it, nearly half a billion dollars' worth of food assistance was suddenly stranded in ports, and people like Barnes faced a desperate scramble.
BARNES: They were giving me a bad time here in the office the other day 'cause I got my rolodex out, calling everybody that I knew that I'd never dealt with about milo, turning over every rock.
MORRIS: Food for Peace was set up as a way to put extra grain to good use and keep farmers in business. A Kansas farmer came up with the idea and a Kansas Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower, signed it into law in 1954. Here's Ike inking a subsequent food aid package for India.
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DWIGHT EISENHOWER: The agreement that we have just signed is a practical application of the term Food for Peace. In a world marked too often by fears and distrust, it warms my heart to take part in an event which is the product of mutual respect and ever-growing friendship.
MORRIS: And American farmers need those overseas friendships. Seventy-five-year-old Larry Preisser, who farms near Cunningham, Kansas, says the cost of farming - buying seed, fertilizer, and farm machinery has shot through the roof. But the price of wheat, corn and soybeans, he says, has tumbled into the cellar.
LARRY PREISSER: You can't make any money. The government wants cheap food, and we can't raise it like that, and we got to have exports.
MORRIS: American farmers typically export more than $150 billion worth of food each year. Food for Peace was a relatively small slice of that market, but Preisser says it was crucial.
PREISSER: It's something we didn't need to lose. They say there's fraud in it. I don't know about that.
MORRIS: Elon Musk called USAID a criminal ball of worms and moved to fire the whole staff. Unions representing those workers sued, and a federal judge has since put Musk's plan on hold, at least through next week. The Kansas Republicans aren't waiting to save the Food for Peace part of USAID. Kansas Senator Jerry Moran has introduced the legislation resurrecting the program and folding it into the Department of Agriculture. Here he is on the Senate floor.
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JERRY MORAN: By placing Food for Peace under USDA's authority, we make certain that the program is in good hands and can continue to bring revenue to American agriculture.
MORRIS: Kansas Farmers Union director Nick Levendofsky says he's not surprised that farm state Republicans want to revive foreign food aid.
NICK LEVENDOFSKY: I think it caught a lot of people off guard, but now we need to pick up the pieces of what's left.
MORRIS: Levendofsky admits it's not clear, though, how the U.S. Department of Agriculture, an agency that's just absorbed its own round of job cuts, is going to take on and restart Food for Peace.
For NPR 瓜神app, I'm Frank Morris in Kansas City. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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