WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S. — Members of the North American Millers’ Association (NAMA) stand ready to provide food aid for North Korea as part of the U.S. agreement with the nation to suspend nuclear activities, NAMA said on March 5.

NAMA said it welcomes the provision of 240,000 tonnes of U.S. nutritional assistance as part of this agreement and encourages the administration to focus on nutrition in the provision of food products to North Korea’s impoverished population.

NAMA commended Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Dr. Rajiv Shah, administrator, U.S. Agency for International Development on this negotiation breakthrough in a letter encouraging the administration to provide a large portion of the promised food aid in the form of high nutrition products such as the blended and fortified grain products produced by a select group of NAMA member companies.

“This is an opportunity to demonstrate the priority the Administration has placed on nutrition both in U.S. and international food interventions,” said Mary Waters, NAMA president. “Such value-added foods encourage economic activity in the U.S. and provide jobs to the U.S. economy, while giving the highest possible nutrition impact for the food aid,” said Waters.

Enriched wheat flour and corn soy blend (CSB) are examples of blended and fortified products that are cost-effective methods of providing timely nutrition. NAMA members produce wheat flour, CSB, bulgur wheat and soy fortified bulgur, corn meal and soy fortified corn meal, wheat soy blend and sorghum grits. All these fortified and blended foods are enriched and fortified with vitamins and minerals to make them the most nutritionally valuable items in the U.S. food aid commodity list. NAMA members have been producing these specialty food grains for more than 50 years. Nations around the world use these commodities to provide at risk populations highly nutritional food assistance in emergencies, development assistance programs and chronic disease intervention.