May 17, 1999
Web posted at: 9:34 p.m. EDT (0134 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States will provide 14,000 tons of food aid per month to refugees who have fled Kosovo and 160,000 tons of food and animal feed to countries in the region, including Macedonia and Albania, that have suffered as a result of the conflict in Yugoslavia, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman announced Monday.

The first shipment will leave the United States at the end of May or the beginning of June, said Glickman, and the monthly remittance of food will feed 250,000 people per month.

'It is both humanitarian foreign policy and humanitarian domestic policy.' — U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman

In addition, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) administrator Brian Atwood said the United States would offer a one-time assistance package of household goods including mattresses, blankets, clothing and hygiene products to families in Albania that have taken in Kosovar refugees.

Presently, 7 percent of the Albanian population is hosting refugees; the United States would like that number to rise to 15 percent, which is the goal of the assistance program, Atwood said.

Glickman said that by the end of the year, a total of 250,000 tons of food aid at a price of $100 million could reach the region.

He also announced another 400,000 metric tons of food aid would be shipped to famine-stricken North Korea.

Add Monday's announcement to aid being sent to Central America and Bangladesh and the United States will have provided nearly 10 million tons of food aid to needy people around the world, almost triple its global donations last year.

Glickman said the donations would help both refugees hit by tragedy and U.S. farmers hit by low farm prices and surpluses.

"It is the best of a win-win situation," said Glickman. "It is both humanitarian foreign policy and humanitarian domestic policy."

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