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GCN Home > 10/13/03 issue

Global delivery: Request system helps USDA deliver food

By Mary Mosquera, GCN Staff

An automated food aid request system developed by an Agriculture Department office in Kansas City, Mo., helps relief organizations deliver billions of dollars’ worth of food more quickly to foreign areas devastated by war and poverty.

The Farm Service Agency’s Commodity Systems Office implemented the Food Aid Request Data Entry System in January. FARES automates the processing of orders for the department’s Foreign Food Aid for Humanitarian Assistance programs.

FARES replaced a system under which government, development and relief agencies exchanged paper forms in a slow and unwieldy process to order, approve and transfer requests for food distributed for humanitarian purposes.

Besides saving time, FARES increases data accuracy and improves information security, said DeWayne Kalberg, chief of the Farm Service Agency’s Commodity Systems Office in Kansas City.

Ninety-two program sponsors use FARES to order food for export, including the United Nations’ World Food Program, the Agency for International Development, USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service and Farm Service Agency, and numerous private volunteer agencies such as Catholic Relief Services. USDA’s Export Operations and Bulk Commodities divisions use FARES to streamline commodity procurement and planning.

The Farm Service Agency acquires more than $2 billion worth of food annually for USAID and the Foreign Agricultural Service to export under humanitarian food aid programs. Last year, USAID responded to 75 disasters in 60 countries.

FARES combines the processes formerly accomplished on paper, which snaked through the internal channels of several offices, into a single transaction that is basically a routing system, said Dave Liem, a team leader at the Commodity Systems Office.
Developers at the Farm Service Agency’s Commodity Systems Office
Image: Courtesy of the Farm Service Agency
These developers at the Farm Service Agency’s Commodity Systems Office built FARES to streamline food aid distribution.
For example, a volunteer group such as Catholic Relief Services sends a food order to USAID. The order goes to the Farm Service Agency in Washington, which routes it to the FSA export operation in Kansas City, which procures the food. Once the order is processed, either by purchasing from a vendor or putting out a solicitation, the order travels back through the same channels to obtain the various agencies’ approvals.

Homes in on orders

These steps combine under FARES’ online routing so that all participants can see the data and the progress of the order, from initial entry throughout the supply line.

The group that places the order can determine where it stands in the pipeline—whether it is still in Washington, has become part of a solicitation bid or has been purchased, said Ethel Bowers, contract and allocation group chief at the Commodity Systems Office.

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