Date: 1985-10-16
Speaker: BENJAMIN GILMAN (republican)
Chamber: H

in celebrating this October 16 as World Food Day. Today. the United States is joined by about 150 other countries around the world in highlighting the crucial importance of agriculture and food distribution for survival and good health of individuals and nations. Today is a time to reflect upon the problem of hungei. how far we have come. and how far we have yet to travel. The problem as I see it. has been to answer the question of why do we even have this problem at all? Since we. as a nation. produce more and spend more on food aid. why do we have overabundance and the tragedy of hunger at the same time? Why does this problem continue to stay ahead of our capacity to solve it? Why with all our resources. can we not better match supply and need? We know the questions. We must search for answers. The African famine has captured the hearts and souls of the American people. and illuminated the problem of hunger in tragic proportions. As the ranking Republican on the Select Committee on Hunger I had the opportunity to view this crisis firsthand with a group of my House colleagues during a trip to Ethiopia last year. Words cannot describe the anguish I felt at Korem and Mekele and other refugee camps. My sense of helplessness was overwhelming. When I saw with my own eyes tens of thousands of persons Jn Ethiopia weakened by hunger and near starvation. I joined with my Hunger Committee colleagues and sent an urgent message to President Reagan.. We informed him that food aid was needed immediately. Our action and the Presidents answer to our call led to the diversion of a ship that was en route elsewhere and its grain was made available to famine victims of Ethiopia. Actually. the past year has seen one of the worst famines in human history. For the third year in a row. half or more of the countries of Africa have faced food emergencies. Tens of millions of persons faced the threat of death by starvation and hungerrelated illness. U.S. resources were mobilized and massive food shipments were sent by our Agency for International Development (AID] to many African countries. Our President and the Congress embraced as a national policy of our country the principle that "the starving child knows no politics." This principle has been applied by AID. under the able and energetic leadership of Mr. M. Peter McPherson. in providing aid to all those African countries suffering food shortages in the current African famine. The United States has led all donor nations in providing 3 million metric tons of food to the African nations in need. Those numbers are truly impressive. More meaningful is the fact that they have saved millions of lives. However. there is a great deal that remains to be done. There is an excellent new book. edited by the Hunger Project. entitled "Ending Hunger. an Idea Whose Time Has Come." The idea of ending hunger has been brought home to tens of millions of Americans by news reports of the African famine. the "We Are the World" song of United Support of Artists for AfricaUSA for Africathe LiveAid Concert. and hundreds of hungerrelated activities across our land. Americans private contributions in the past year exceeded $200 million in lifesaving assistance. We know the problems are severe. We know that many lives depend each day on our work. We know that the massive efforts required have been begun. We have a lot more to do. Yesterday. the U.S. Postal Service issued a new national stamp. Its message is simple: "Help End Hunger." It was private citizen Phyllis Alroy of Princeton. NJ. who led a national campaign to obtain the signatures of tens of thousands of Americans in support of the "Help End Hunger" stamp. Hunger Committee Chairman LELAND pressed the idea in the House Post Office and Civil Service Committee and won key support for it. As World Food Day comes and goes. I am hopeful that this national stamp will help seal our efforts throughout the year in alleviating hunger. I urge that all of us who can buy this special stamp now. while it is available. and use it to send out our mail through the coming months. It will help keep the "end hunger" message going across our land and around the world. as we send our mail to other countries. In my home State of New Jersey. Governor Kean issued a special call to the people of our State to capture the spirit of World Food Day. Rev. John Barton. working with Church World Service/Crop. is a leader of New Jerseys impressive array of World Food Day activities. I am sure that the people of New Jersey will heed the call of World Food Day. as will millions of others across the land. Indeed. many in New Jersey have been leading the call already. One such person is Victor Cino. This May. a resident of Tenafly. NJ. through his own desire to help the worlds neediest. with untiring energy. organized the New Jersey Council on African Relief. He now chairs this council. comprised of many organizations in the State that are active in overseas hunger relief efforts. including emergency shipments of medicines. Mr. Cinos success certainly shows that an individual with commitment and hard work can work with others and save lives. If there were time. I could report on the individual. corporate. and group contributions of many others. as well. They all deserve our hearty commendation. To carry the spirit of World Food Day forward. I have cosponsored the House resolution to have November 24. the Sunday before Thanksgiving. designated as the "National Day of Fasting to Raise Funds to Combat Hunger." The resolution encourages Americans who are able to forgo one or more meals and contribute the money saved to a hungerrelief organization of their choice. This will give us each a special chance to experience hunger concerns more personally while raising substantial sums help to those who suffer from hunger. Crisis intervention does not substitute for our longterm development goals. We must take care to help prepare the recipient nations to begin to provide for their own basic needs. There is a point at which emergency food can deter local food production. We must avoid that counterproductive result. Our goal must be to meet critical emergency needs while promoting selfsufficiency. not dependency. We must ensure that these nations do not become permanent wards of the world. We must help bring the benefits of a new "green revolution" to Africa. The United States supports African development through the transfer of agricultural technology and aid assistance. Indeed. our participation in the World Banks International Development Association [IDA). the International Fund for Agricultural Development [IFADI. and the FAO has created many local success stories. For instance. IFADs role is to work with the poorest rural farmers in the developing world to assist them in enhancing their food production. If we are to help the subSaharan region of Africa overcome the current crisis and move toward selfsufficiency. we must direct our attention to the small farmer on whom this region relies. Each of these programs remains crucial to the momentum of Agricultural innovation. However. without fundamental changes in the agricultural. economic. and population policies of governments. the seeds of progress sown by agricultural innovation will fail to flower. We must work to change the illconceived and regressive perceptions. of governments that view agriculture as the primitive sector of their economies. To be tolerated and taxed solely for the benefit of the urban and Industrial sectors. Only when this antiagricultural mindset of postcolonial Africa changes. can genuine progress be made toward the elimination of the conditions that foster these catastrophic famines. Clearly. a massive effort by numerous governments. international organizations. private groups. and millions of Individuals is required to end the scourge of hunger. I stand with my fellow Members of Congress. with the President and our executive agencies. and with those In the private sector who are dedicated to ending hunger in our time. I wish to commend Hunger Committee member. BENJAMIN GILMAN for proposing the World Food Day resolution. the President for again answering our call and leading our national observance. the more than 300 American groups and organization members of the National Committee for World Food Day for their mobilization of local support. and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization [UN/FAO] for its leading work toward food security for all peoples. We can all be proud of the leading role our country and so many of its private citizens and organizations have played in the alleviation of hunger and malnutrition in the United States and in other countries around the world. Sadly. we cannot rest on our past accomplishments and just return -October 16. 1985 CO to our every day lives. satisfied .that ewe -have done what we could and more thananyothershaverdone. We cannot ibecause the crisis of food .shortages in .many countries and in .many individual households in all countries persists. Thesolutions:lie in longterm efforts to increase food production.in the poorest countries and to improve driternationaldistribution.and incountry delivery systems. World FoodDay is based on the importalt idea .that the people of the world should share in a partnership in the search for solutions to the problems of hunger and malnutrition. I hope that our national commemoration df World Food Day will lead niillions of Americans to listen. read. and reflect on the continuing problems of hunger affecting .millions of persons datily. More importantly. I hope that it Vill encouragemany to contact domestic :and international organizations that are -working to sdlve hunger.prdblems -and to form lasting links with them in their ongoing efforts to aleviate hunger and malnutrition in our time.