Bring Back USAID, Famous Chef José Andrés Advises the President

For years, one of the world’s most famous chefs and restauranteurs, José Andrés, has combined his greatest recipe: his love of cooking, his desire to feed others, and his commitment to sharing the food that the world’s farmers have grown.

Andrés non-profit, World Central Kitchen, has served more than half a billion people to hungry people following natural disasters, wars, and famine. On Wednesday he joined Tom Vilsack, the former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and current World Food Prize Foundation CEO, for the weeklong Borlaug Dialogue in Des Moines, Iowa.

Honoring Norman Borlaug’s Dedication to Feed the World

Norman Borlaug was an Iowa native, and a world-renowned agronomist who revolutionized farming by developing semi-dwarf, high-yield, disease-resistant wheat. He was nicknamed “the father of the Green Revolution” and is credited with nearly doubling wheat yields in countries including Pakistan and India. No human ever may have done more to prevent starvation across the world.

RELATED: In 2023, Tom Vilsack – who was serving his record fourth full term at the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture – explained why it is difficult to track how much American farmland people in China have purchased.  

USAID Cuts Draw Criticism

Chef Andrés said that he wanted to personally appeal to President Donald Trump to restore the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The program was in its seventh decade of work within and outside the United States when Trump’s chosen leader of the so-called D.O.G.E. (Department of Government Efficiency), billionaire Elon Musk, gutted the agency by firing nearly all its 10,000 workers and ending its programs for food research, farming, health, education, and economic growth.

Critics have said the decision will lead to the deaths of people worldwide who may no longer have the previous access to food, clean water, medicine and assistance for farmers.

But President Trump claimed that USAID had “tremendous fraud” and was run by “radical left lunatics,” something he did not allege when he served as president the first time.

“It would be amazing,” Andrés said, if Trump “would realize it was ill-advised” to shut down USAID.

World Food Prize Laureates Write Letter to World Leaders

Andrés joined 28 World Food Prize Laureates in a letter that called on the United States and countries across the world to double investment in emergency food aid and sustainable agriculture.  

“More than 700 million people go hungry each day, over two billion lack reliable access to food, nearly one in four children is stunted by malnutrition and man-made famine afflicts two continents. More than 75 years have passed since the world first affirmed the fundamental human right to food. Yet, despite great progress, that right is still far from being realized,” the authors wrote.

They also stressed the importance of growing tomorrow’s food in abundance in a sustainable way. Their letter stated, “we must confront the long-term risks to food security by accelerating sustainable agricultural productivity. We must learn to produce more with less—to feed a growing population on a planet under stress. That requires bold investment in transformative innovation, and in the locally led systems that bring those advances to the farmers, processors and consumers who can turn them into lasting impact.”

RELATED: Donor helps research continue at USAID lab that helped farmers worldwide.