In food aid crunch, U.S. reluctant to tap crop trust

By Missy Ryan - Analysis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As the United States scrambles to prevent soaring food prices from eating into global food aid programs this year, the Bush administration appears reluctant to tap a "rainy day" stash of almost a million tonnes of wheat.

The Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust, which contains 915,000 tonnes of grain, mostly wheat, and $117 million in cash, was set up as a fund of last resort when hunger emergencies erupt in the world's most vulnerable corners.

Several members of Congress, including Kansas Republican Jerry Moran, will send a letter to President George W. Bush next week, calling for extra funding for U.S. and U.N. food aid programs, an aide said.

They will also ask the administration to tap the crop trust for the first time since 2005, when hundreds of thousands of tonnes were used to help staunch famine in Africa.

Officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development, which runs the largest food aid program, and the Agriculture Department, which decides when to release crops from the trust, have not said whether they will tap the trust any time soon.

But its wheat -- stored and maintained in silos at a cost of millions of dollars a year -- takes on new importance as officials struggle with what many experts predict is a permanent upward shift in global crop and food prices.

USAID, whose flat budget is shrinking relative to soaring food prices, is bracing itself for reducing food donations unless it receives a last-minute funding injection from Congress.

After global food prices shot up close to 40 percent in 2007, the U.N. World Food Program has been sounding the alarm, too, as it seeks an extra $500 million or more for this year.