USAID cuts threaten 'God's food,' made in Georgia for children in need
By Rich McKay
FITZGERALD, Georgia (Reuters) -Reaching into one of the giant white sacks piled up in his Georgia food-processing plant, Mark Moore pulls out a fistful of shelled peanuts - what he calls "God's food" - and lets them roll through his fingers.
A former evangelical missionary, Moore is co-founder of MANA Nutrition, a non-profit that says it has fed 10 million children across the globe since 2010 with packets of peanut butter paste made in the small farming community of Fitzgerald, about 180 miles south of Atlanta.
"This saves children," said Moore, 58, clutching a bunch of the protein-rich legumes. "It's not an overstatement: We defeat death."
But MANA is now in the midst of its own struggle for survival. Deep cuts in federal programs targeting international aid programs under President Donald Trump have threatened to choke off the financial lifeline that has allowed the non-profit to carry out its life-saving mission.
Since January, the U.S. Agency for International Development - created during the height of the Cold War by then-President John F. Kennedy - has all been but dismantled by the Department of Government Efficiency, Trump's cost-cutting entity led until recently by billionaire Elon Musk.
In announcing the termination of its contracts, which accounted for about 90 percent of MANA's $100 million annual budget, DOGE sent a letter to the non-profit saying its work was "not aligned with Agency priorities." Efforts to reach a spokesperson for the State Department, which oversees USAID, have been unsuccessful.
In two terse letters sent to MANA and reviewed by Reuters, USAID offered no specific reasons for the terminations other than to say the work "was not in the national interest."
MANA has just enough cash on hand to keep running through August at the most, Moore says, but he seems unshakable in his optimism about the future of its mission.
He has vowed to keep his 80,000 square-foot factory going and his 130 workers employed, even as the Trump administration has slashed 90 percent of USAID contracts and $60 billion in U.S. assistance across the board.
One possibility is finding another international aid organization to support the manufacture and distribution of MANA's peanut paste packets, each about the size of a cell phone. Most of the product - which also includes powdered milk, sugar and vitamins - goes to Africa, where Moore served as a missionary in Uganda for 10 years.
"It saves children who are at the brink of no return," said Mark Manary, an expert in childhood nutrition at Washington University's Institute for Public Health who helped develop the paste's formula. "It's hard to wrap your mind around the need."
Manary said the food created in Georgia and at a similar operation in Rhode Island, Edesia Nutrition, is an important link in the global effort to stave off starvation of children in countries where the No. 1 killer is malnutrition.
Moore hopes lawmakers and the Trump administration will see the value in the work and put the money back into the new federal budget.
"I believe that the U.S. government will remain involved in global food aid," he said, adding that he has spoken to both Republicans and Democrats who want the work to continue.
Moore is also seeking contracts with other organizations that specialize in humanitarian aid for children in crisis, including Save the Children, International Rescue Committee and UNICEF. The organizations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
One bright spot in recent years was an infusion of cash from Chris Hohn, a hedge-fund billionaire based in London and a philanthropist with the Children's Investment Fund Foundation. Hohn's charity did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In recent years, Hohn has given more than $250 million to MANA Nutrition, according to Moore, much of it already spent on expanding the plant, more than doubling its space and adding new machinery.
But MANA needs new contracts to go forward, or another donation from philanthropists.
"We've been put on Earth for a purpose," he said. "Jesus told his disciples to go and feed the people. So, we've been hustling nonstop."
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