The Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust is a special authority in Agricultural Act of 2014 that allows the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Office of Food for Peace to respond to
I didn’t really have a strong grasp on how much wheat 4M metric tons is, so I did a very rough calculation. My sourdough recipe uses roughly 455 grams of flour.
So this is enough for 26 loaves of bread for all 330M people (probably closer to 20-24 since wheat to flour is not 1-1 but we’ll say 10% of mass is lost maybe).
That’s for the full 4M t stockpile. Apparently the remaining amount that was sold off in 2008 wasn’t even a full 1M t. So that’s only 6 loaves of bread per person. That’s a joke, if we’re in a situation where a stockpile of grain actually needs to be consumed.
I bet the US govt hasn’t been capable of carrying out “convert nationally-stored grain to food (or foodstuffs) and distribute it to citizens” in several decades, or even managing the logistics of deciding how to send it to mills/food producers.
I bet they could have managed the logistics if it was to feed soldiers to put down uprisings. But of course they decided that was still a dumb idea, so now when shit hits the fan soldiers have a huge incentive to pillage, like the good old days, or just go rogue/insurrectionary.
I didn’t really have a strong grasp on how much wheat 4M metric tons is, so I did a very rough calculation. My sourdough recipe uses roughly 455 grams of flour.
So this is enough for 26 loaves of bread for all 330M people (probably closer to 20-24 since wheat to flour is not 1-1 but we’ll say 10% of mass is lost maybe).
That’s for the full 4M t stockpile. Apparently the remaining amount that was sold off in 2008 wasn’t even a full 1M t. So that’s only 6 loaves of bread per person. That’s a joke, if we’re in a situation where a stockpile of grain actually needs to be consumed.
I bet the US govt hasn’t been capable of carrying out “convert nationally-stored grain to food (or foodstuffs) and distribute it to citizens” in several decades, or even managing the logistics of deciding how to send it to mills/food producers.
I bet they could have managed the logistics if it was to feed soldiers to put down uprisings. But of course they decided that was still a dumb idea, so now when shit hits the fan soldiers have a huge incentive to pillage, like the good old days, or just go rogue/insurrectionary.
Converting the stockpile to money sounds like a great way to support bureaucratic embezzlement by all the failsons who get that job
It's about 12 kilos apiece- a 25-lb bag of flour for every adult and child in America.
Damn that’s a nicer way to picture it, nicely done