In preparation for the Congress, a Special Assembly on Man's Right to Freedom from Hunger was convened in Rome on 14 March. This Assembly was attended by 29 world-renowned personalities, including several Nobel Prize winners and others whose contribution to the thought and culture of the twentieth century is widely acknowledged. A Manifesto issued by the Assembly provided a dramatic opening for the World Freedom from Hunger Week, from 17 to 24 March, which spanned the equinox that marks spring and the time of sowing in the Northern Hemisphere, and harvest in the Southern Hemisphere. The various imaginative ways in which the Week was celebrated will have been experienced personally by many readers of Unasylva . In addition 140 postal administrations throughout the world issued special FFHC stamps, thus securing the widest possible dissemination of the Campaign message.
Laymen often express scepticism of any relationship between forestry and freedom from hunger.
Indeed, excessive deforestation has led, and is still leading, to serious losses of farm land in many parts of the world. One of the basic ways in which farm production may be increased is by extending irrigation. This involves expensive public works which may only be wasted as a result of the silting-up of reservoirs and canals. If an irrigation scheme is to be a permanent asset to a country's agriculture, then the catchment area from which it derives its water must be protected from erosion by adequate vegetative or forest cover. This is an indirect way in which forestry helps food production.