Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., told Stephen Vaden, President Trump’s nominee for agriculture deputy secretary, that “food aid is important” and that he would like to have Vaden’s “voice” on a bill that he and Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Hoeven, R-N.D., have introduced to move the Food for Peace program from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is being folded into the State Department, to the Agriculture Department.

“Food for Peace needs to have a future, and the future could be at USDA,” Moran said.

Moran said that he had met with farmers over the weekend and that they had told him that food aid is “part of their income.”

When the Trump administration began to dismantle USAID, international food aid shipments were caught up in the crossfire, but Moran said he worked to get the food aid disbursed and the companies paid for the food aid. After the hearing, Moran told The Hagstrom Report he does not know if the U.S. government is currently buying products to be used for food aid.

Moran said he has discussed the proposal to move Food for Peace to USDA with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, White House aides and the Office of Management and Budget. He also said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Food for Peace will stay at the State Department unless another agency wants it.

Moran noted that international food aid has a long history in Kansas because it was started under President Eisenhower, who was a Kansan, and strongly supported by Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan.

In a back-and-forth with Moran, Vaden said that as USDA general counsel in the first Trump administration, he had provided the legal guidance that USDA could move the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the Economic Research Service to the Kansas City area.

Moving the agencies to Kansas City proved controversial, with many employees leaving and USDA experiencing difficulties in recruiting replacements. Vaden noted that Jaye Hamby, the new NIFA director, had traveled to Kansas City to reassure employees there that “they are a vital part of USDA.”