Here's Why Our Grain Was Shipped To India In A Bright Blue Box
    55 Years Of CARE
by Amy Harding, FSA Export Operations Staff

     The Farm Service Agency's Commodity Office in Kansas City, Mo., recently purchased and coordinated a shipment of 44,000 pounds of grain products for a school feeding program in India.

     That particular activity is all part of FSA's daily operations--but this time there was a big difference. It was definitely the first time that the grain was shipped to its destination in a bright blue shipping container decorated with oversized postage stamps from all over the world, accompanied by artwork drawn by American schoolkids.

     It was all part of an effort to help the private non-profit humanitarian relief organization CARE celebrate its 55^th anniversary this year in providing international relief and development. Here's how some USDA employees helped to make it happen.

     Dave Lovo, P.L. 480 Title II program manager in FSA's Procurement and Donations Division, explained that, following an earthquake that devastated India on January 26, 2001, the U.S. was using its PL-480 "Food for Peace" program to provide assistance. "Under the Food for Peace program," he said, "USDA buys extra crops and food from U.S. farmers and donates this food to relief organizations such as CARE. The food is then shipped to developing countries or those that need assistance as a result of natural disasters."

“OK, students, do you all have your caps on? Yes, you too on the far left: Cap ON! We’re about to snap your pic in front of this bright blue 'Boomerang Box,’ that’s decorated with oversized postage stamps from all over the world, before it gets loaded with nearly 20 metric tons of a high-protein corn soy mixture--which the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently purchased from a grain processing company here in Cambria, Wisconsin. Then it’ll all be shipped to a school feeding program in India, along with some artwork from students in Washington, DC. In a minute you’ll get to sample what that corn soy mixture tastes like. Have any of you students heard of CARE? It turns 55 this year. No, it’s not a stuffed toy bear; that’s something else...” So just what’s this all about, and how were USDA employees involved in it? Note this story. --Photo by Scott Frank

     Accordingly, earlier this spring FSA's Commodity Office in Kansas City purchased 44,000 pounds of a high-protein corn soy mixture for a school feeding program in Vishakhapatnam, India. "We purchased it from a grain processing company in Cambria, Wisconsin, as a humanitarian aid shipment," Lovo noted.

     Jim Firth, chief of FSA's Export Operations Branch, said that, at about that same time, officials involved in international humanitarian aid programs wanted to do something to spotlight the 55^th anniversary of CARE. "It had been formed to help survivors of World War II," he said. "Back then, CARE meant 'Co-operative for American Remittances to Europe,' and was composed of 22 charities which sent packages of food, clothing, medicine, and other relief supplies to people in Europe and Asia after the war."

     "It was thought that this particular delivery to India might spotlight CARE's humanitarian work overseas for over half a century."

     So a cooperative effort began to develop among USDA, CARE, the U.S. Agency for International Development, sixth graders from an elementary school in Washington, DC, and American President Lines, which is a private sector shipping company which transports cargo around the world.

     Carol Van Alstine, an agricultural marketing specialist in FSA's Export Operations Branch, added that the effort included making the school the first stop for the shipping container, a 40-foot-long cargo container which had been painted bright blue and decorated with oversized postage stamps.

     "This particular container is called the 'Boomerang Box'," she explained, "because it goes out to an international destination loaded with life-saving commodities--like the high-protein corn soy mixture to India. Then, like a boomerang, it returns to the U.S. filled with products that are needed here."

     Mike Martin, an agricultural marketing specialist in FSA's Commodity Office in Kansas City, pointed out that an FSA regulation stipulates that containers are to be inspected for cleanliness and condition prior to loading food into them. Therefore, according to Greg Tomas, assistant manager of the Baltimore, Md., field office of the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration, on March 9 contract inspectors in Norfolk, Va., licensed by GIPSA, inspected the empty Boomerang Box in advance of the loading of the grain products.

     On March 15 the still-empty Boomerang Box arrived at Washington, DC's Ross Elementary School on a truck trailer. The sixth graders presented artwork, which they had drawn illustrating their school and hometown, to a CARE official to give to the school children at a school feeding program in Vishakhapatnam, India. "Then," Van Alstine said, "those students in India will eventually 'boomerang' their own artwork back to students in America."

     Martin said that the Boomerang Box was then trucked to Cambria, Wis., where on March 21 it was loaded with the 44,000 pounds of a high-protein corn soy mixture that FSA's Commodity Office in Kansas City had purchased earlier.

     Austen Merrick, chief of the Kansas City Commodity Office's Export Operations Division, said that at Cambria, about 40 third-grade students from the Cambria-Friesland Elementary School met the Boomerang Box. "I was one of the presenters, representing USDA," he said. "Several of us spoke to the students--outdoors, in front of that big, blue Boomerang Box--about the various roles which USDA, CARE, the grain company, and the shipper all play in getting this shipment to the students in India."

     Merrick noted that the students were provided a sample, for tasting, of the corn soy mixture contained in the Boomerang Box.

     American President Lines had developed a web site so that students in classrooms across the nation could track the voyage of the Boomerang Box.

     The Boomerang Box was then trucked to Chicago, and then moved by train to Seattle, where on April 8 it was loaded on an American President Lines cargo vessel called "APL China" for a month-long voyage to Vishakhapatnam, India. It arrived on May 25.

     "This single container of 44,000 pounds equates to 10,000 child servings of 100 grams each of food," Firth underscored. "With that perspective, it's amazing to think that FSA purchased over 5.4 million metric tons of food assistance just last year alone."