Jan. 25 (Bloomberg) -- The Bush administration is reviving a plan to buy some of the food it uses for overseas aid from foreign rather than domestic farmers, and is courting the support of charities that helped sink the idea last year.

The proposal, a version of last year's plan to funnel one- quarter of the $1.2 billion spent by the government on foreign aid to local suppliers, still faces opposition from U.S. agricultural producers, who currently supply all the food aid.

U.S. Agency for International Development officials met recently with groups such as Care, which runs poverty programs in more than 70 countries, and Save the Children, to try to win their support for reviving the idea of buying emergency food supplies in or near countries hit by famine, according to Alina Labrada of Care and Ina Schonberg of Save the Children.

``What the U.S. seeks is a flexible box of tools to deal with crises,'' Jonathan Dworken, the acting director of USAID's Food for Peace office, said in an interview. ``Purchasing locally is often cheaper and might allow us to react more quickly.'' He declined to provide details of what Bush will propose in the budget he sends Congress on Feb. 6.

The five-decade-old food aid and famine-relief program has maintained its political support in Washington because Congress mandates that all food and grain be bought from U.S. farmers, packaged by U.S. exporters such as Cargill Inc. of Wayzata, Minnesota, the largest U.S. agricultural company, and shipped on U.S.-flagged vessels. Bush is renewing his plan as the European Union pushes the U.S. to accept limits on its use of food aid as part of World Trade Organization talks.

Farmers `Strongly Opposed'

``We're strongly opposed'' to changing the system, said Dawn Forsythe, director of public affairs at U.S. Wheat Associates in Washington, the crop producers' export-marketing arm. ``We don't see the value of purchasing our competitors' wheat with U.S. funds.''

Charities also have something to lose under the Bush plan. Groups such as Monrovia, California-based World Vision, Baltimore-based Catholic Relief Services and Care, with a U.S. headquarters in Atlanta, currently can sell some of the U.S. food donations they handle to finance other development projects, such as education or health care. The Bush plan would reduce the amount of food aid available for that purpose.

Government food aid programs accounted for about 30 percent of the revenue of the eight largest private groups that distribute U.S. government food aid, according to Cornell University economist Chris Barrett.

``They are desperately scared of losing'' that money, said Barrett, author of the 2005 book ``Food Aid After Fifty Years.'' ``With a few influential people who have something at stake and these images that come out of food aid, politically this is a tough ball to move.''

Political Risk

The U.S. bought from U.S. farms and distributed to foreign nations $1.6 billion of food in 2004, mostly through programs run by USAID and private charities, according to the Agriculture Department. That includes purchases of 200,000 metric tons of rice, 300,500 tons of corn and 1.63 million tons of wheat.

While some foreign purchases may be acceptable, if they remove too much of the financial benefits for U.S. producers and organizations, support in Washington will be lost, said Michael Wiest, the chief operating officer of Catholic Relief Services.

``There is the great risk that there is no longer the political support to protect these programs from cuts,'' said Wiest, whose group distributed $154 million in food aid in 2004.

Critics say the current program spends too much money shipping U.S. food overseas while undercutting the ability of local farmers to make a profit. Cornell's Barrett says maintaining the current practices can also mean delays in times of emergency.

`Structural Problem'

``There is a structural problem in bringing food from a long way off in every situation,'' Andrew Natsios, who stepped down as head of the USAID this month, said in an interview. ``If I had more funds, I would not invest it in more food aid, but in agriculture development'' overseas.

Bush's proposal last year would have let USAID spend $300 million of the $1.2 billion food aid budget buying products in or near the countries in need.

Natsios said he had expected opposition from farm groups and shippers, and was surprised by the resistance from the charities. They said Natsios was creating a slush fund without any details on how the program would work.

Objections

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, a Republican from Virginia, criticized Bush's proposal last year because it would have transferred U.S. taxpayer funds to foreign competitors.

``Under the current system we're able to help those in need, and also help U.S. farmers and ranchers,'' Alise Kowalski, a spokeswoman for Goodlatte, said this week.

Congress not only declined to pursue Bush's plan last year, it admonished Bush not to propose it again. The 20 members of Congress who negotiated a final farm spending bill said in their October report that Bush should ``refrain from proposals which place at risk a carefully balanced coalition of interests which have served the interests of international food assistance programs well for more than 50 years.''

``The reaction last year surprised a lot of people,'' said Patrick Webb, the former chief of nutrition at the United Nations' World Food Programme who is now a dean at Tufts University near Boston. If Bush had courted the charities last year, ``maybe the reaction would have been different,'' he said.

Ready to Listen

Some of the charity groups who have met recently with Dworken or his aides say they are ready to listen now, partly because outside pressures, such as the WTO talks and funding cuts, are already pushing changes to the system. They say they never opposed the overall idea, just the lack of detail.

The charities already face cuts in U.S. aid for long-term donation programs, especially those that allow them to sell food in poor countries and use the proceeds to fund their other programs. About $600 million of food aid in 2004 was used in this way, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department.

``We all want to find a way to test this out and make it work,'' said Schonberg, the director of food security programs at Save the Children in Westport, Connecticut, which provides food, AIDS treatment and education in 110 countries. ``But there are a lot of questions. One is: Are the agriculture producers going to block this?''

To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Drajem in Washington at mdrajem@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: January 25, 2006 00:02 EST