The Global Food Security Act is intended to make the “Feed the Future” program a permanent program, locked into statute. It is on the goal line in Congress thanks to bipartisan leadership and cooperation between both Agriculture Committees and the two Foreign Relations Committees. According to a new report by The Economist the “Global Food Security Index” is improving. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimate “the number of undernourished people has fallen by 176 million of the past ten years” but we still have a way to go. One in nine people still remain hungry, or some 800 million people and half of those people are smallholder farmers. Seventy-five percent (75%) of the world's poor live in rural areas in developing countries. Most people who live in these areas rely directly on agriculture for their livelihoods, particularly women. In Kenya, for example, agriculture is the driving force of the economy and central to the Government of Kenya's development strategy. More than 75 percent of all Kenyans make some part of their living in agriculture, and the sector accounts for more than a fourth of Kenya's gross domestic product.
In 2010, the US Agency for International Development and the Administration launched “Feed the Future” (FTF), an initiative designed to expand and better coordinate the United States' investments in improving global food security. Feed the Future is a whole-of-government approach that focuses on the dual objectives of improving farmer productivity, income, and livelihoods in developing countries while fighting hunger with a special focus on women and children in particular.