Bureau for Food Security

The US Agency for International Development Bureau for Food Security, a sub-agency of the civilian State Department-affiliated development agency, funds international agricultural development, food security, and resilience programming through both contracts and grants. The Bureau operates as the federal coordinator for USAID's food security agenda across developing regions.

The Bureau has awarded 39 federal contracts totaling $155.9 million in combined potential value since 2010, with $132.5 million obligated. Recent contract activity declined sharply after 2019; the agency closed 5 awards in the last five years (2019 through 2023), compared to 5 in 2017 alone. Award cadence shows 5 awards in 2017, 3 in 2018, 3 in 2019, 1 in 2022, and 4 in 2023. One of the five recent awards carries no reported potential value, indicating transactional activity through Schedule task orders, BPA calls, or below-threshold purchase orders. Contract competition is highly fragmented. Liberty Glory Corporation leads recent activity with 2 awards worth $10.6 million combined potential value; Liberty Eagle Corporation and Sealift Holdings Inc. each hold 1 recent award. These three vendors account for only 9 percent of recent combined potential value, and 24 distinct primes have been awarded across the portfolio lifetime. Nearly all awards bypass set-asides; 97 percent are unrestricted, with only 1 competitive 8(a) award recorded.

The Bureau has awarded 52 federal grants totaling $1.12 billion in combined federal dollars obligated since 2006. Grant awards have trended downward; the agency obligated 5 awards in 2019, then 3 in 2020, 1 in 2021, 1 in 2022, and 1 in 2023. Grant competition is highly fragmented across 38 distinct recipients, with no single organization dominating the recent portfolio. Technoserve, Inc. and Global Resilience Partnership NON Profit Company together represent only 2 percent of recent federal dollars, despite accounting for 100 percent of recent award count — a sign that the vast majority of grant funding is distributed widely among smaller awards. Cooperative Agreements account for 79 percent of all grant awards, with Project Grants comprising the remaining 21 percent. The most recent grant award closed in October 2023; no recent contract or grant opportunities are recorded in the current solicitation pipeline.