African Farmers Challenge ADM for Bigger Share of U.S. Food Aid

Purchase for Progress is the signature program of Josette Sheeran, who served in the U.S. State Department under President George W. Bush before running the UN’s World Food Program, the globe’s biggest food-aid agency. When she joined the WFP in 2007, she looked for new ways to combat famine.

“What we began to ask,” says Sheeran, “is how do we purchase in a way that helps it be a solution to hunger?”

She says the WFP found the answer in what’s called P4P, which uses the agency’s buying power to integrate the world’s poorest farmers into the global food economy. The drawback is that if the model takes off, some Americans could lose their jobs, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its Aug. 1 edition.  - Bloomberg