Actress Kristin Davis: We need to reform food aid

Actress and Global Ambassador for Oxfam Kristin Davis is in Washington this week. She's meeting with members of Congress to lobby them on reforming the Food Aid portion of the Farm Bill which must be reauthorized by September. The Sex and the City star spoke to The Hill's Comment Editor Emmanuel Touhey about the need for reform, her visits to refugee camps in Africa and what she hopes to accomplish on her first visit to Capitol Hill.  Here's an excerpt of that interview.

The Hill: Kristin Davis, thank you for joining us today. Could you tell us why you’re here in Washington, DC?

Davis: I am here because I am a global ambassador for Oxfam, and we’re having an event here called Sisters of the Planet, and it’s very exciting,. We have about 70 women from around the country, all different walks of life — private enterprise, military women, faith leaders, it’s a very interesting group of people and we’re here to celebrate International Women’s Day, and to mobilize ourselves to support some legislation and ideas up on the Hill. We’re kind of going there en masse, and it’s exciting.

The Hill: Food Aid is an important part of the Farm Bill, and that’s something you’re focused on. Why did you pick that issue?

Davis: Well, my work with Oxfam centers on women and women’s rights and women’s issues, so when you start to go out in the world and see what’s actually going on, one of the things that you notice is that most of the farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are now women, but people don’t really realize that. They’re not getting a lot of support. Often they’re not even technically allowed to own the land that they’re farming. They’re usually using kind of handed-down methods that aren’t necessarily working anymore because of the weather changes. There’s just so many things about what they’re doing that is difficult, but yet they’re there, they’re holding together their families, they’re trying to educate their children. So we try to, to go and support
those women through Oxfam and just a little bit of support can just make so much change.

And I’ve seen it in so many countries. I’ve met these amazing women in Tanzania—one of which is here with our meeting today—and they have
changed their entire communities just by some very simple techniques that they’ve learned to better their crop output,. Then they can send their children to school. They can go to the market and sell their vegetables, which helps them build the school in their village and the other kids can go to school. You know it has kind of a multiplying effect in terms of how it changes that community.

So the Farm Bill has a lot of elements in it that are older—some of them from the 1930s, kind of red-tape things that don’t really make our aid that we give always efficient. So I think that everyone in America would like our aid dollars to be efficient. I think that it’s in everyone’s interest that the other countries and people in other countries have stability in terms of their food sources,. Sometimes our food bills destabilize other countries, so I think that we need to look at that and make sure that we’re not shooting ourselves in the foot.

The Hill: You've talked about being to Tanzania, and you’ve also been to Kenya and the largest refugee camp [Dadaab] there in the Horn of Africa…
Could you tell me about your visit there? What did you see and how did it affect you?

Davis: Well, we were in Tanzania on a planned Oxfam trip and we were meeting with these women farmers, which was great and very inspiring, and when we were there we were getting email alerts about the number of people who were coming into the camp—kind of a surprising influx suddenly coming from Somalia into Kenya. So we were close by and we thought well we should go try to see what was going on. So we went and it was very shocking and disheartening and upsetting, just because you feel like we’re in the modern world and how can these things happen when so many people are forced into just this really horrible situation where they can’t feed their children and they’re having to leave their countries and walk hundreds of miles and lose family members along the way. When we went, the camp couldn’t even accommodate the people, so we basically visited the camp that was
outside the camp, of all the people who couldn’t get into the camp. I’d never seen anything like that, and it was shocking. It was shocking. Still, still shocking.

The Hill: As you meet with members of Congress this week on the Hill, what do you want to convey to them most of all?

Davis: I feel like one of the most important things is that when I was in Dadaab and you’re looking at these people who are in these really extreme situations, you look at all the young boys, you know, there are children, all the way up to young teens, and many of them have lost their fathers in the fighting, and they’ve followed their mothers and possibly lost them as well, and you think about the fact that really no one is helping them. They are alone. They have been given up by their country, they have no government. Whoever is there to hand them aid, that’s a very meaningful thing, and I was very happy to be with an organization, Oxfam, and giving them aid, and I was very happy when I would see the USAID bags of food. And if it’s not us, it’s
going to be someone else giving them aid. And I do think that that is a very real consequence for our future. I think it’s something that everyone should remember—that it’s not just the morally right thing to do. It actually has real consequences as these people grow up, whether they feel like they’re in a world that supports them or if they’re in a world where they want to do bad things.

The Hill: You’re now a mother. What do you want your daughter [Gemma Rose]] to know about your work, about Washington, D.C., and Congress?

Davis: [Laughs] I hadn’t thought about that so much. I definitely would like to take my daughter on my Oxfam trips. You know, Congress is fascinating; I’m excited to go to the Hill just because I’ve never really seen the offices. I think it’s important to realize that we’re in a country where we have a voice, and it’s important to use your voice, and we’re lucky to be here. We should never take that for granted, and we should always stand up for the people we feel need to have a voice and don’t have a voice.

The Hill: Did you bring her with you on this trip?

Davis: No.

The Hill: When you go from something so serious in Africa to what you do on the stage or in front of the camera, how do you separate them?

Davis: It can be strange, it can definitely be very surreal, for sure. When I first started I had a few moments. I came back from a trip and went directly to the Golden Globes red carpet and I was so jet-lagged. It seemed like the trip was real and the red carpet  not real, which in a lot of ways is actually true. So I think my work with Oxfam really grounds me. It educates me. It inspires me. I feel like it feeds my acting work. It expands me as a person every time I go out in the world and see how other people live and I learn so much when I go, and I think as an actor that’s all you can do, is try to expand as a person. But sometimes the glamorous part is a little strange.

The Hill: Do you plan to go back to Africa anytime soon?

Davis: Absolutely. I usually go back every year. Now that I have a little baby I’m trying to figure that out. But I usually go back every year, and I’m feeling the need at this point. I love it, I love to go. I love every country we’ve been to. I love it.

The Hill: Kristin Davis, thank you for your time and I hope that when you come back next time you’ll tell us more about your next trip.

Davis: Okay, I will. I’d love to. Thanks.

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