The Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust (BEHT) is a

strategic grain reserve A strategic grain reserve is a government stockpile of grain for the purpose of meeting future domestic or international needs. In the United States, such programs have included the Farmer-Owned Grain Reserve (1977–1996), Food Security Wheat Reser ...

held by the United States for the benefit of other countries. It can contain commodities and cash held in trust to supplement food aid made available under programs created by Public Law 480, the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954. The Trust can hold up to 4 million metric tons of

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

corn Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout Poaceae, grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples of Mexico, indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago ...

sorghum ''Sorghum bicolor'', commonly called sorghum () and also known as great millet, broomcorn, guinea corn, durra, imphee, jowar, or milo, is a species in the Poaceae, grass genus ''Sorghum (genus), Sorghum'' cultivated for its grain. The grain i ...

, and

rice Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...

. Since 2008, the Trust has held no grain, and holds only cash. The Trust is a successor to the

Food Security Wheat Reserve The Food Security Wheat Reserve (FSWR) was a strategic grain reserve of up to 4 million metric tons of wheat held by the United States for use in meeting emergency food needs in developing countries, established by Title III of the Agricultural Act ...

established in 1980 (P.L. 96-494, Title III). Subsequently, the authorization for this reserve was expanded from wheat alone to also include corn, rice, and sorghum by the

1996 farm bill The Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-127), known informally as the Freedom to Farm Act, the FAIR Act, or the 1996 U.S. Farm Bill, was the omnibus 1996 farm bill that, among other provisions, revises and simplifies ...

(P.L. 104-127, Sec. 225). Renamed the ''Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust'' in 1998 legislation (P.L. 105-385, Sec. 211) it was also authorized to hold cash in addition to commodities. Commodities (or cash) can be released from the Trust to meet unanticipated needs for emergency food assistance or when domestic supplies are insufficient to meet P.L. 480 (7 U.S.C. 1736f-1) programming requirements. The trust was established by the ''Africa: Seeds of Hope Act of 1998''. It is named for

U.S. Congressman The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...

Bill Emerson Norvell William Emerson (January 1, 1938 – June 22, 1996) was an American politician. He served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Missouri from 1981 until his death from lung cancer in Bethesda, Maryland in 19 ...

, who served in the House of Representatives from 1981 until his death in 1996. In 2008, as global food prices spiked, the remaining commodities (about 915,000 metric tons) were sold. Since then, the trust is solely a cash reserve, invested in low-risk, short-term securities or instruments. The trust allows the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) ''Office of Food for Peace'' (FFP) to respond to

food crises A famine is a widespread scarcity of food caused by several possible factors, including, but not limited to war, natural disasters, crop failure, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usuall ...

in other countries and release and use funds for famine relief in cases where other resources are not available. Since it no longer holds commodities, it can respond to local food crises outside the US, but not to a global one that affects the USA itself. The trust is still active as of 2017.

References

*{{CRS, article = Report for Congress: Agriculture: A Glossary of Terms, Programs, and Laws, 2005 Edition, url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110810044532/http://ncseonline.org/nle/crsreports/05jun/97-905.pdf, author= Jasper Womach United States Department of Agriculture Food security in the United States Strategic reserves of the United States