By NATHAN KING
Salina Post
David Beasley, the executive director of the World Food Programme, and First District Congressman Tracey Mann were given a tour of the Cargill grain elevator in Salina last week while Beasley was in the state.
Beasley, was invited to Kansas participate in the Landon Lecture Series at Kansas State University.
"David Beasley is a champion in the fight against hunger. As executive director of the Universal World Food Programme, he has mobilized resources to an ever increasing need for food around the world," said Richard Linton, president of Kansas State University. "In 2021 the World Food Programme helped feed more than 128 million people, a record number."
After leaving Manhattan, Mann and Beasley stopped to tour the Cargill grain elevator at Salina. The stop included discussions with Kansas farmers and agricultural leaders from Cargill and to pay tribute to the rich history of Kansas agriculture’s role in feeding the world.
“The Big First District is the third largest agricultural-producing congressional district in the country, ranking number one in wheat production, sorghum production, and beef production,” Mann said. “To feed more people, we must encourage more people to become involved in production agriculture. American farmers can produce food more efficiently and effectively here than anywhere else in the world.”
Kansas farmers are all too familiar when it comes to feeding the world. In September 1953, Peter O’Brien, a farmer from Cheyenne County Kansas stood up at his local county Farm Bureau meeting to share an idea. O'Brien wanted to donate surplus Kansas grain to hungry people around the world. Over the course of the next several months, today’s Food for Peace program was crafted. The following year, President Dwight Eisenhower, signed parts of the program into law. That was the beginning of what is now a longstanding commitment by Kansan farmers to address global hunger.
"Kansas farmers feed, fuel, and clothe people around the world, and it’s no small task – it takes grit, determination, and partnership between the public and private sectors," Mann said. "Farmers here know that well and have acted selflessly for more than half a century through their food contributions to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the World Food Programme. International assistance programs like those that the World Food Programme implements, exemplify a strong return on investment. This investment supports American agricultural producers today and feeds a starving world.”
Before becoming the executive director of the WFP, Beasley was the first Governor in South Carolina to make a public push for the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the state capitol dome, a move that earned him the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. Beasley attended Clemson University and the University of South Carolina where he received a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree. He has also taught at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government. He was first elected to public office at the age of 21 as a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives.
Now he is in charge of feeding the world's hungry, a job getting harder by the day as climate issues and man made conflicts around the world threaten the global food supply chains.
"When I took this role five and a half years ago, I thought I could put the World Food Program out of business, we had 80 million people marching to starvation around the whole world, and I thought if we can end that, we can end the World Food Proam," Beasley said. "But man made conflicts and climate shocks caused the number of people marching to starvation to go from 80 million to 135 million. The COVID-19 pandemic brought economic devastation to the poorest of the poor around the world. They have spent all their money, they don't have anything left to spend anymore. Since COVID that number went from 135 to 276 million people. That's before Ukraine."
Beasley outlined the importance of Ukraine and how the Russian invasion has acutely impacted the already stressed global food system.
"Just when you think it can't get any worse, you have Russian invasion in Ukraine, the breadbasket of the world that produces enough food to feed 400 million people, all of a sudden comes along to have the longest bread lines in the world," Beasley said. So the number of people marched into starvation went from 276 million to 345 million people. "Within that, there are some extremely troubling numbers. There are 50 million people in 45 countries that are at famine store as we speak."
"Today is a day to celebrate American farmers who have provided nutrition in the place of starvation, created careers of dignity in the place of aimlessness, and secured peace in the place of war," Mann said.
Mann is the representative in Congress for the First Congressional District of Kansas. The Big First is home to 60,000 farms and ranches and is the third-largest agriculture production district in the country. Representative Mann proudly serves on the House Agriculture Committee, the Subcommittee on Livestock and Foreign Agriculture, the Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management, and is a member of the Congressional Hunger Caucus.