The CEO of a plant producing peanut paste for severely malnourished children worldwide says the US Agency for International Development (USAID) reinstated his contract after canceling it last week. "It’s been a yo-yo effect. We receive a memo from USAID to stop, then a restart, then a cancellation. Fortunately, last night, they reinstate the contract," says Mark Moore, CEO of MANA Nutrition in Fitzgerald, Georgia.
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00:00Children who are malnourished aren't really hungry, they cease to be hungry because of
00:22the deficiencies that their bodies face through malnutrition.
00:26So this product, these little packets of peanut butter paste, help restore their hunger,
00:32get them back to normal, and that's what we make in this plant.
00:36We take vitamins, peanuts, milk, some sugar and some micronutrients, put them all together
00:43and make this little packet called Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food.
00:56It's been a yo-yo effect.
01:04So we got a memo from USAID saying stop, then we got a restart, then a little later we got
01:14just a total cancellation of our contract.
01:16So it just said these contracts are nullified, and then fortunately last night they reinstated
01:24the contract.
01:25It's been an up-and-down process over the past month or so.
01:44However, I think you could argue Food Aid is America first.
01:47First off, it's our farmers, $2 billion a year going to our farmers through Food Aid.
01:53Yes, we should take care of our own people, but this is a very small and generous expense.
02:01Even though it's a, I think in the Bible it says, crumbs that fall from the rich man's
02:07table, that's this.
02:09And cleaning up these crumbs on our end, it's not going to make a difference.
02:13But for them, it makes all the difference.
02:15Lives will be lost, guaranteed, if we quit this.
02:19And that over there is Taylor's fault.