-3-

The food crisis first focussed our concern. In 1972 we became conscious of the narrowed margin between survival and mass starvation, and of the world's dependence on the surplus production of a few nations. In 1973 the emerging energy crisis deepened man's awareness of the threat to his common destiny. And in 1974 the global economic system itself threatens to collapse under the accumulated weight of repeated shocks and outdated conceptions.

The magnitude of our problems can call forth deep pessimism and paralysis -- or enormous exhilaration and determination to prevail. We can shrink from reality and be overwhelmed by it -- or we can comprehend fundamental change and act on its implications. We have the ability, if we have the will, to master our fate.

-4-

During the next thirty years we must move increasingly
toward a global conception.

For we are undergoing the birth pangs of global inter-
dependence. The world is irreversibly linked by instant
communications, devastating weapons, dependent economies
and the thrust of human aspirations. It can no longer be
governed by national perspectives, and national prerogatives
alone. Nations intimately depend on one another for natural
resources and technology, for trade and investment, for the
very livelihood of their peoples. Empty oil barges mean
farmers' ox-carts empty of the fruits of the Green Revolution.
A failure in production by the handful of major food exporters
could mean widespread starvation in the poorest countries.

-5-

The race for higher prices forces all nations to join in, but it produces no more real goods to meet man's vital needs, and it can decimate those on the edge of survival around the world.

The interrelated problems of energy, food and inflation exceed the capacity of any single government or few governments to resolve. All nations -- East and West, North and South -- are part of a global system which no nation can escape. We will rise together, or we will fall together.

Our solutions will not be found in traditional theories of ideological supremacy, national autonomy or the sanctity of blocs. Such approaches not only will not bring success; they will guarantee disaster. The perpetuation of old habits would lead to a series of rivalries in which each nation, region or bloc attempts to save itself by exploiting its own special strengths.

But each of us is vulnerable to the actions of others, the poorest

-6-

and weakest nations the most vulnerable of all. A test of
strengths would tear the fabric of international cooperation
upon which national growth depends and begin a process of
decline. The ensuing general crisis would magnify domestic
instability and shatter our peoples' aspirations for a better
life. The recent progress we have made in easing major
power confrontation and chronic regional conflicts
would be reversed and could be superseded by global tensions.

Frequently in history catastrophe could not be foreseen
and thus averted -- the tragedy was a failure of vision. But
today our fate is self-evident if we do not act in a new spirit --
the tragedy would be a failure of will.

-7-

There is great opportunity as well as danger in the present
economic crisis. We can move together in positive directions,
comprehending our common responsibility for one another's
progress and developing cooperative policies that serve the
world's interests and therefore our own.

Let us forge a consensus about the nature and requirements
of the modern world -- for without consensus we cannot regain
control over our common destiny.

Let us shape a new era of global cooperation on global
challenges -- for without cooperation there can be no perma-
nent improvement in the human condition and no lasting peace.

## The Food Challenge

We can begin here with the problem of food. No concept of
justice can tolerate a world in which the spiritual and physical potential

-8-

of hundreds of millions are permanently stunted from lack of
food. No concept of stability can survive in a world where
significant crop failures could bring widespread starvation.

The challenge of food is to learn to manage the inter-
dependence of both issues and nations. A generation ago most
farmers were self-sufficient -- today fuel, fertilizer, capital
and technology are essential. A generation ago most nations
were self-sufficient -- today a few major food exporters provide
the margin between survival and famine.

Thus the food challenge is part of an interrelated global
challenge. A world economy of energy shortages, rampant
inflation, and a deteriorating trade and monetary system will
be an economy of food shortages as well. A world in which
nations or blocs seek narrow benefits

-9-

through dominance of essential commodities will inevitably
trigger counter-blocs, crumbling the foundations of inter-
national stability.

We are all engaged in a common endeavor. Now we must
match our physical need with our political determination.

President Ford has asked me to affirm today the
unequivocal commitment of the United States. We will make a
contribution second to none to meet man's rapidly growing need for food.

The United States recognizes the responsibility of leadership
it bears by virtue of its extraordinary agricultural productivity,
its advanced technology and its tradition of assistance.

The immediate need is to define the problem so we can
devise a strategy nations can support and sustain over the
longer-term. For the issues we face cannot be resolved in one
year, or in one forum, or by any one panacea.

-10-

The food challenge has two dimensions -- first, the current shortage of reserves to meet disasters and second, the long-term challenge of achieving man's aspirations for an adequate standard of nutrition.

During the decades of the 1950's and 60's world production grew with great consistency. Total world production increased by more than half. And even in the developing nations per capita production increased.

But in 1972, world cereal production declined for the first time in twenty years as adverse weather struck across the globe. This happened at a time when growing populations and growing affluence required a steady and rapid advance in food production. And despite the fact that world crop weather was generally excellent in 1973, it fell again to below average in 1974 so that current reserves have declined to the point that a significant crop failure today could produce a major disaster.

-11-

The nature of the longer-term problem is equally stark.

We face a situation in which hundreds of millions of people do not get enough to eat to live decent and productive lives.

Since gains in food production are not evenly distributed, the absolute numbers of malnourished people is actually greater today than ever before except in times of famine. In many parts of the world 30-50% of the children die before the age of five, millions of them from malnutrition. Many of those who survive have their intellectual and physical capacities permanently stunted.

World food production would have to double by the end of this century just to maintain this inadequate level of diets.

If we are to have adequate diets, and surely this must be our goal, we will have to increase production 150% - to more than three billion tons of grains annually.

-12-

If this analysis of the problem is correct, the magnitude
of the response it requires is self-evident. We are summoned to
an effort of creation and cooperation unprecedented in this
generation. A global strategy compels urgent action on three
fronts:

First, over the next quarter century we must more than
double global production to meet man's age-old aspiration for
adequate food. The United States invites the other major food
surplus nations to join in a concerted effort to maximize our pro-
help meet
duction to/the global need. And my nation commits itself to
substantially increase assistance to production in developing
countries where both the need and potential are greatest.

-13-

Second, we must provide new financial mechanisms to move
<u>food from areas which can produce a surplus to areas where</u>
<u>it is needed to sustain life and promote economic development.</u>

The United States is prepared to join with other traditional
donors and with the newly wealthy nations to agree on new
means to provide a substantial level of concessionary assistance
in both funds and food to prevent the poorest nations from
being overwhelmed.

Third, we must establish a cooperative international
<u>system to maintain world food availability despite the</u>
<u>vagaries of nature and to mitigate disruption of the world's</u>
<u>food marketing system in times of stress.</u> The United States
will join in initiating, establishing and maintaining a global
food reserve to ease the impact of recurring shortage.

-14-

New Perceptions

To free ourselves to shape the future, we must first free
ourselves from the shibboleths of the past.

We have -- all of us -- been prisoners of habits of mind
which have restricted our vision in the past and which, if left
uncorrected, could bring disaster in the future. We have
generally believed:

-- First, that production up to full capacity in the food
exporting countries would result in the build up of food
surpluses that will depress the market and drive farmers off
the land. Now we must understand that there has never been any
real surplus as long as human beings somewhere were either
starving, undernourished or less well-fed than human beings in
areas more blessed with nature's bounty or higher levels
of income. The problem instead has been our collective
failure to devise a financial and trading system that can

-15-

transfer an apparent surplus from one area to an obvious
deficit in another, without dampening incentives to further
production in either.

-- Second, <u>that food deficit countries could assign a lower</u>
<u>priority to agricultural development than to industrial</u>
<u>development.</u> Now we must understand that we can no
longer afford to divert scarce resources needed to increase
food output and productivity.

-- Third, <u>that only surplus producers could or should</u>
<u>carry reserve stocks</u>, and that food deficit countries can draw
upon those stocks at any time, regardless of the policies they
have pursued with respect to their own production and trade.

Now all countries should recognize that the responsibility for
world food security must be more widely shared.

To understand that these perceptions must change, we
have only to look at what our future will be if we proceed on the

-16-

course defined by present trends. Unless we accelerate our

investment in food production, our scientific research in

agriculture, and our capacity to meet recurring shortage:

-- The periods of food surplus will be rarer and shorter and

periods of tight supply come more often and remain

longer; national and regional famine will be more

severe;

-- The long-term decline in the real cost of food will be

reversed; prices of food, relative to other goods,

will be higher than we have come to expect in the last

half century.

-- The gap between the food that developing countries

need and the food that they produce will grow from

the present 25 million tons to 50 to 100 million tons a year;

-17-

-- Increasing deficits of food will force developing

countries to bitter choices between food consumption and economic growth;

-- In a world in which only a few countries are self-sufficient in food and even fewer produce a surplus, new bonds of dependency and new forms of subordination could emerge, for all our wish to avoid them.

We can and must change these projections by taking decisive action in the following four areas.

-18-

Increased Output by Food Exporters

This is our first great task. Most of the world's nations
are food importers. The balance wheel between food produc-
tion and food demand is a small group of food exporters.

Present trends dictate that world reliance on this export
production will grow through the next decade and perhaps
beyond. The major surplus nations must act now to assure
the world's food supply for this immediate future.

The United States believes that the food exporters can
act more efficiently together than they have alone. We
therefore invite other major food exporters to join us in
planning a common strategy to meet the need of food deficit
nations, to pledge the substantial investment required, and to
launch a major effort in technology. The United States will

-19-

soon approach the other surplus producers with a program
of cooperation.

-- First, we must concert our efforts to stimulate and rationalize production. The United States has removed all restraints on food production for the first time in a generation. We are prepared to join the other major surplus nations in pledging to match our production to the global need.

-- Second, we must increase investment in agriculture.

While maximizing production will help restrain prices, food is going to cost the world more to produce. The best land, the most accessible water, and the most obvious improvements in production are already in use.

In the United States we have begun to make the effort required -- our investment in agriculture increased by ____ in ____.

-22-

-- The network of existing *international agriculture research centers* should be substantially strengthened.

We propose that their funding be increased from $40 to $100 million by 1980. The United States is prepared to *double its contribution*.

-- The United States will share the benefits of the world's most *advanced national research program with developing nations*.

We are working on a vast array of promising projects: to produce greater protein content in common cereals, to develop more efficient machines for the world's ______ million small farmers, and to better apply the knowledge we already possess. But new programs are required as well. For example, to reduce the great uncertainties which annually plague both producers

-23-

and consumers, our space, agriculture and weather
experts will test next year advanced satellite techniques
for surveying and forecasting important food crops.
It will make them available

We invite international participation in this potentially
vital step toward rational planning of global food pro-
duction.

Second, increased production will require vastly increased
resources. We can hope for great technological breakthroughs,
but we cannot count on them. There is no substitute for new
irrigation systems, for new storage and distribution systems,
for new production facilities for fertilizer, pesticide and seed,
for agricultural credit institutions. Most of these investments
must be financed at home, but the requirement for foreign
resources will also rapidly increase.

-24-

Third, a revolution in agricultural policies in developing countries is essential. In far too many, the farmer has no incentive to increase production, because prices are set at unremunerative levels, because credit is unavailable, or because transportation and distribution facilities are inadequate.

Rich countries must be more generous in providing the foreign exchange and technical help the new priority of food demands. Developing countries must give a higher priority for food production in their tax, credit and investment policies, and in their development budgets, in order that their farmers may have the incentives and means to increase output. Both groups of countries must cooperate on expanded production at reasonable cost of necessary inputs like fertilizers and pesticides.

-25-

To accomplish this purpose, the United States proposes
the formation of a food production and investment coordinating
group, bringing together representatives from traditional and
new donors, multilateral agencies and developing countries in a
common effort:

(a) To provide the internal and external resources required; and

(b) To encourage those improvements in government policies that are necessary to the more effective use of available resources by farmers, small as well as large, to produce more food.

The United States has long been a major source of financing
for agricultural development, a role we intend to expand. Food
and nutrition programs constitute 60% of our development

-26-

assistance programs and we have requested a substantial
increase for them in our current budget.

Food Transfers

Our third great task is to transfer food to where it is
needed. Even with maximum rates of agricultural growth in
the developing countries, there is still likely to remain a
food import requirement of some 50 million tons a year in
the mid-1980's, or twice what they now import. And that is
the best case. We will fail in our objective of abolishing
hunger in the world if we do not help the developing countries
obtain the means to import the food they will need to feed
their people.

How is the cost of these imports to be met?

-27-

First, by the earnings of the developing countries themselves. This is now, and must remain, the way in which the larger part of the food deficit is financed. But we can act to improve the opportunities of developing countries to earn more, by improving market access for their products. The United States renews its commitment to this objective today.

Second, through an expanded flow of food aid, organized on these principles:

- The availability of food aid must not be permitted to discourage efforts to stimulate local production;

- The burdens of providing concessional financing for other food imports should be equitably shared. In most cases, such food aid frees resources that developing countries can use for other imports; it is

-28-

therefore similar to other forms of aid, and must not
be the province of food exporters alone.

-- A careful judgment should be made between such
food aid and assistance to food production. Food aid
brings both an earlier and more precise benefit,
while help for production promotes the essential longer-
term goals of more balanced economic growth, reduction
of rural poverty and unemployment, and a greater
global food supply.

-- Food aid for disasters and for disadvantaged and
vulnerable groups should be expanded both through
bilateral channels and the World Food Program.

In order to ensure that these principles are implemented,
the United States proposes the establishment of a food aid

-29-

donors coordinating group to stimulate the provision of the
funds and food required. The group would bring together both
traditional and potential new donors, especially the oil
exporters. As a first task, this group should negotiate a
multi-year minimum global quantity of food for whose transfer
to needy developing countries it is prepared to find the necessary
finances. For its own part, the United States will make a major
and continuing contribution to the common effort. In the
course of this fiscal year, United States food aid will be sub-
stantially increased to developing countries, and we will make
every effort to assure that, in future years, our contribution
will be consistent with the need.

In this effort, the oil producers have a special and
virtually unique role to play. Many of them dispose of real

-30-

income, transferred to them from both the developing and
industrialized consuming countries in the form of payments
for oil, that is far in excess of their current or even
reasonable future requirements for their own economic
development. The continuing transfer of wealth on
this pattern inevitably cuts into the capacity of the developing
countries to purchase food and of the developed countries to
expand the flow of financial resources to the developing world.

Unless we can jointly find ways to move increasing amounts
of this surplus revenue into longer-term lending or grants, the
international monetary system which underpins the transfer of
real resources will not be able to function. In this circum-
stance, the developing countries which lack both energy and

-31-

food will be the first to suffer, and the mounting strains which
result could eventually destroy both internal social structures
and, ultimately, the whole fabric of an interdependent world.

But all of this may not be enough. The transfer of food
from the exporting areas to the importing areas of the develop-
ing world is too vital to our economic and political health to be
put as risk. We must act now and together to determine whether
the separate measures we propose to take -- to lower
import requirements by increasing production in developing
countires, to expand participation of the wealthy
countries in food aid programs, and to enhance developing
country earning power by increased trade and investment -- are
adequate to meet the need.

-32-

I, therefore, propose that the _new Development and Interim Committees_, created at the recent session of the International Bank and Monetary Fund governors, be charged with the _urgent study of whether existing commercial, financial and assistance arrangements are sufficient to meet the expected import requirements of developing countries_.

Should the Committees conclude that there is substantial risk that these requirements may not be met, they should consider alternative means, including the role that _Special Drawing Rights_ might play in enabling food deficit countries with serious financing problems to meet their needs.

## Food Security

This is the last great task. While the measures which I have outlined should, in time, provide the increase in productive capacity which the world will need to feed itself, the events

-33-

of the past few years have made it abundantly clear to all of
us that relying on annual capacity alone will not guarantee
that we can avoid years of severe strain and shortage. To
ensure that man's survival is not dependent each year upon
what nature will enable him to grow, and to meet individual
food emergencies, we must agree here to establish an inter-
national food reserve system. We commend FAO Secretary
General Boerma for this constructive and essential proposal.

The world has come to depend on a few surplus producers,
and particularly the United States, to carry reserves sufficient
to meet periodic emergencies brought on by crop failure,
floods and other disasters. But the needs of all countries for
more food to feed more people and to improve the level of
diets has resulted in such a demand for those reserves over

-34-

the last two years that they no longer exist -- despite the
fact that we removed _ restrictions on our production and
our farmers made an unprecedented effort to maximize their
output.

It is neither prudent nor practical for other countries
to leave this responsibility to a few. Those with a history or
prospect of radical fluctuations in annual requirements for
food imports have an obligation both to their own people and to
the world community to participate directly in a system which
shares that responsibility more widely. And those, like the
United States, which have the capacity to supply those require-
ments can no longer afford to be caught by surprise. They
must have the information needed to plan their production
and exports.

["-35-", "To meet this problem effectively, we believe a new\nsystem must be organized, including all the major exporters\nand those whose import needs are likely to be greatest. We\ntherefore propose to join in establishing a Reserves Coordin-\nating Group with a charter to negotiate an international system\nof nationally held grain reserves. We propose that the group be\nformed at this conference and meet at an early date to negotiate\na detailed agreement.", "Such an agreement should include the following elements:", "- A full exchange of information among participants\n  on reserve and working stock levels, crop prospects\n  and import-export intentions;", {"bbox": [270, 1159, 937, 1347], "category": "List-item", "text "- Definition of the size of global reserves required to protect the world community against famine and and excessive price fluctuations;"]

-36-

-- Distribution of the responsibility for holding
reserves among the participating countries;

-- Guidelines on the management of national
reserves, in particular as to when it is appro-
priate to add to reserves and when to release
from them;

-- Preference in distribution of reserves for
participants, and measures to be taken in the
event that major countries who should participate
choose not to do so or that participants do not
conform to the agreed guidelines for purchase
and sale;

-- A committee of the participants to consult regularly
about the functioning of the scheme, including invo-
cation of measures for non-compliance, adjustments
of targets and settlement of disputes.

-37-

Institutional Arrangements *

There is no single prescription for alleviating the food
problem. No single group can be made responsible for the
solution. I have broken the problem into four parts and
explained what the United States believes needs to be done in
each area. If we can generate awareness, identify the effort
required and build the will to execute these plans, I am
confident we can succeed.

To perform these tasks, we should establish the four new
international groups which I have proposed:

- The Export Production Planning Group,

- The Coordinating Group on Food Production and Investment,

* Secretary Butz would eliminate this section - believes too many groups being proposed and they downgrade FAO. On the other hand, Ambassador Martin feels there is substantial international support for new institutional mechanisms.

-38-

-- The Food Aid Coordinating Group,

-- The Reserves Coordinating Group.

Because the membership of each of these groups would be limited and self-contained, there is a clear need for a central body to fuse our efforts and provide leadership. A _World Food Council_, joined to the Office of the Secretary General of the United Nations and having a limited representative membership, could assure the coherent approach needed to contain and then to resolve the world food problem.

Such a Council, with a small staff and an advisory committee of experts, could propose basic policy on central issues to governments and international institutions.

-39-

## CONCLUSION

Let me conclude.

The magnitude of the problem we confront presents the necessity for a truly massive global effort -- or the prospect of spreading hunger and starvation, growing domestic and international tension and the abandonment of mankind's aspirations for a more humane, prosperous, cooperative and peaceful world.

Nothing more overwhelms the human spirit, nor pits man against man or nation against nation than a fruitless search for sustenance. No tragedy is greater than the look in the eyes of a starving child.

The stakes are too high for us to fail.

-40-

The profound promise of our era is that for the first time we may have the technical capacity to free man from the struggle for food.

Once famine was considered part of the normal cycle of man's existence, a matter for local or at most national concern. Now our achievements, our expectations, and our values have raised food to the level of international concern. Mankind is reaching for something higher and better than he has ever known.

Today we must proclaim a bold objective -- that by the 21st century no child will go to bed hungry at night, no man will fear tomorrow he cannot provide his family food, and no person will fail to achieve his intellectual and physical potential from a lack of adequate nutrition.

We must move toward that goal together.

-41-

-- Let us resolve to confront the problem, not each other.

-- Let us agree that the scale, severity and duration of
the problem require a massive, innovative, long-range effort
unprecedented in human history.

-- And let us seek to make global cooperation in food a
model for such other challenges of an interdependent world as
energy, inflation, population and the environment.

This decade is a pivotal period in realizing the hope expressed
by William Faulkner that "Man will not merely endure, he will
prevail." We live today in a world so complex that even only to
endure, man must prevail -- over the problems of an interde-
pendent global economy that threaten to exceed his intellectual
and moral grasp and over the habits of competition and conflict
that have obscured his constructive and peaceful nature.

-42-

Nations have tended to view the world as a given -- the basic question was who would get the larger share. Today it is clear the world is not static -- we can all encourage and benefit from growth or all decline together.

Thus the ultimate challenge is not to our economic or political capacity but to our ability to perceive the world anew. The challenges of the next century can not be met with concepts from the last. The idea of global community is no longer a matter of desire but of necessity. Human needs, purposes and international realities summon the leaders of the world to a new era of greatness.

Let a renewed sense of our common destiny lead us to match our challenges with our will and vision.

Draft India Speech for the Secretary

Prepared by Ambassador Moynihan

on October 7, 1974

It is now more than three years since I was last
in New Delhi. I was then on my way to Peking, much as
I am now on my way from Moscow. This pattern of those
concerned with foreign affairs moving about among the
capitals of the world has, if anything, grown more
evident in these years, marking the transition from a
bi-polar world locked in confrontation and seemingly
destined for some final, awful encounter, into the world
of the present, which is to say the world of detente
about which First Secretary Brezhnev spoke with quality
and understanding in his address to the Joint Session of
the Indian Parliament last October. It is, to appearances,
a more complex world, even for some a less assuring one,
yet therein lie its essential virtues. For detente has
not made the world more complex; it has merely made world
leaders recognize that complexity. It has not made the
world less secure; it has merely made more evident the
insecurity not only of nations and of men, but of mankind
itself in the present state of world order and world
technology. If detente has made the world a somewhat better
place, it is only in measure that there has been some

-2-

learning on the part of those who fought always to have
known how serious man's predicament is, how little can
be got from confrontation, how total is the need for
cooperation.

In my discussion in Moscow, I was able to state
yet again the determination of the American Government
to maintain the forward movement of detente, and I was
assured of the intent of the Soviet leaders to do like-
wise. For reality has not changed, and those forces
which compelled recognition of reality three and four
years ago are, if anything, more powerful now than when
the superpowers first began to respond.

This has not been, nor will it be, an effortless
transition for the American people. Nor can I imagine
that it has been without difficulties in other parts of
the world, for the vision of detente requires coming to
terms with the reality of a multi-polar world which was
adamantly and often angrily denied for so many years,
indeed decades. It is, perhaps, not inappropriate for
an American to acknowledge here in New Delhi that this
new vision which has come to other nations and to their
leaders is little more than the old vision of Jawaharlal
Nehru, of his successor Lal Bahadur Shastri, and his
successor, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. It was Nehru
who first perceived and first articulated the impermanence

-3-

and the unrealities of the post-war world, the frozen
and implacable hostility among the superpowers, and
their often desperate efforts to enlist other nations
on one side or the other. This was the world into which
the Republic of India was born. These were the forces
which instantly sought to shape the foreign policy of
the new republic.

It was Nehru's vision -- as much a moral vision as
a political insight -- that India's role would be to
reshape the world and redirect those forces. From this
evolved the concept of non-alignment, and it no more
than states the simple, self-evident truth that if it
took the rest of the world more time than it ought to
have to come to share this understanding and vision, at
least it has done so. Certainly, the United States has
done so. We understand non-alignment now and we accept
it. It is not for every nation. It is not for us. Yet
for a great number of nations in the world it is a policy
based firmly on recognition of reality, rather than -- as
was sometimes charged -- on rejection of it.

There is a corollary to the recognition of non-
alignment. There is or ought to be. This is that nations
which for whatever reason are aligned should cease their
efforts to encourage the perfection of those who are not.
This has become American policy, and nowhere more explicit

-4-

than in our policy with respect to the nations of
South Asia, where a fifth of mankind lives. In testi-
mony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee
on September 19, I stated this principle of American
foreign policy in terms that were surely explicit
enough. "We do not look", I said, "at the Subcontinent
as being composed of some countries that are clients of
China, others that are clients of the Soviet Union, and
others that should be clients of the United States. We
believe that we can have productive relations with all
of them, and we believe also, especially with respect
to India, that our relations are in a stage of dramatic
improvement".

This improvement has been steady and ever more
manifest for some time. If asked for how long and in
what context, an American statesman would have no diffi-
culty replying. It began as the Simla process began and
has proceeded and strengthened as that process has
proceeded and strengthened. Just three days after my
testimony in Washington, here in New Delhi the National
Herald, founded by Jawaharlal Nehru, commented that "the
one positive aspect of recent U.S. policy toward India
has been that there has been no interference in affairs
of the Subcontinent". We may be forgiven the hope that
there has been more than simply one positive aspect of

-5-

our relations of late, but if we were required to choose
that aspect on which we place the highest value it would,
indeed, be just this principle of non-interference with
the non-aligned which the *National Herald* acknowledged.
It is here that the Simla process becomes so essential.
For it is conflict within the Subcontinent that has
brought on the interference of outsiders -- in South
Asia, as in every other region of the world and for so
much of the history of that world.

Correspondingly, it has been precisely the emergence
of a regional political capacity to resolve regional
conflict which has to some degree marked the diminishment
of such outside interference. Increasingly, the unwarr-
anted has become unsustainable as well. It is not ordained
in the nature of things that this process will continue
and strengthen. But it can and it ought to, and the
United States very much hopes that it will. Political
stability and economic success in South Asia are the
beginning and the end of what we hope for here and what
we think South Asians hope for and what we hope the rest
of the world hopes for as well. I need not say that we
are the only arms producer in the world which maintains a
policy -- and has done so for nearly a decade -- of not
providing arms to South Asian nations. It is not ordained
that this policy will continue indefinitely -- and there

-6-

are circumstances which would force its abandonment--
but clearly any such policy must maintain its relevance
and can best be defended so long as peaceful progress
continues toward ever greater regional stability and
independence.

To acknowledge the great vision of Jawaharlal
Nehru is, in a sense, merely to acknowledge old reality,
conditions which have always existed even when their
existence was denied, but there are new realities also,
and these press equally for recognition. One, surely,
is that the size and position of the Republic of India
gives to it special capacities for leadership in South
Asian affiars, and special responsibilities that go with
such a position. The United States recognizes this new
reality, and accepts it as wholly compatible with the
close friendship and special bond we have with other
nations of the region. As we wish South Asia well, we
wish India well.

It is in this sense that the United States has
stated its desire for what we have termed a mature
relationship with India, an upland of steady and pro-
ductive exchange, leaving behind the peaks and the
valleys of the past. We are each of us, India and the
United States, nations to which much has been given and
of which much is asked. We are wealthy nations. The

-7-

United States has the largest industrial output in the world; India, the tenth largest. We are continental nations with all that means by way of leadership. We are democracies, with all that means for governments. We are nuclear nations, with all that means by way of responsibility to avoid the proliferation of weapons and advance the peaceful uses of the atom. We are on opposite sides of the world from one another, but on the same side of an enormous range of issues and interests in world affairs.

We are of necessity too close together on too many things to ever seriously contemplate remaining apart as a matter of choice. A simple example: The United States has the largest work force of scientists and technologists in the world; India has the third largest. Neither of our two nations came to this circumstance by virtue of natural inheritance, in the sense that a nation might possess oil or coal or fisheries or forests. A work force of scientists and technologists arose from aspects of cultural and social policy which we manifestly shared. It is no accident that Indians comprise the largest body of foreign students in the United States.

Similarly, it is no accident that the vitality of our science and technology rests in considerable measure

-8-

on maintenance of contact across national borders.

American science needs to be in touch with Indian science,
and Indian science with ours. It is the task of political
leadership which makes this possible. But such relations
can only be sustained as between equals. If there was
one great feeling of Indo-American relations in the
eighth quarter-century of our nationhood and the first
of yours, it was in respect to assuring that relations
were indeed based on equality. With the best of wills,
both Americans and Indians have been lax on this score.
It has been just that, I think; a certain carelessness,
at times an excess of zeal, which so often led us into
unintended yet, under the circumstances, unavoidable
confrontation. However, attention and a certain firming
up of good intentions can lead us away from such encounters.
This is probably the single greatest difficulty we face
together, and yet it probably is not that much of a
difficulty once recognized.

It comes to this. If the United States and India
are to have good relations, these must first be the
relations of equals. This is more than a doctrine of
international law. It is a political reality which arises
not least because we are both democracies, with all that
implies for the kinds of decisions we are able to make.
Leaders of a democracy can only sustain over time policies

-9-

toward other nations which their electorate can and
will support. If there is no general law as to what
such policies are likely to be, there is a specific
limitation as to what they cannot be. They cannot
be based on the dependence of one country on another.
People won't put up with it. Those who are dependent
will balk; those on whom they depend will do so as
well. It is said that people get the government they
deserve, although democracy need not fear. Yet it is
also true that in the main people get the government
they desire and within those limits the economic life
they desire and the results of both.

Democratic electorates notice better more often
than do their leaders. Political systems are notalike,
and neither are economists. As some give greater indi-
vidual freedom, and others less, some give greater
individual prosperity and others less. In each case,
for something gained there is something lost. Democracies
pay a price for individual freedom; market economies, a
price for individual prosperity. Other systems have their
particular costs. People know this, and with respect to
other nations, no matter what the fashion of national
oratory, people in the main do not accept that need which
arises from political and economic arrangements can
routinely be escalated into international plays. I would

-10-

offer a direct example from the American experience
of the cold war. Desiring as we did -- and as we do --
to maintain and protect our system of political democracy
at home, we found ourselves escalating this into a claim
on other nations, a claim that they should associate
themselves in the defense of our liberties.

Other nations, of which India was by far the most
important, disallowed this claim, perceived that it
arose from the internal demands of the American system,
and felt it could not be held valid with respect to
others on the assertion of similarity between the American
system and the Indian system. Much misunderstanding arose
from these events, and yet do we not see the matter
finally resolving itself and in the manner India proposed?
What is true of needs arising from internal political
systems is no less true of needs arising from internal
economic systems. They do not translate into international
claims. They cannot. It is a formula for political
irresponsibility and a scenario for economic disaster.
The people of whom the claims are made will not allow them.
Here again, it was India which first and foremost of the
new nations of the world recognized this reality and
proclaimed its determination to free itself of artificial
resource transfers from without to meet needs which arose
from within. We like to think that the United States has

-11-

responded to this resolve in a manner in which India
would wish it to do. Earlier this year, the United States
wrote off the largest amount of foreign debt ever cancelled
in the history of international finance, the so-called
rupee debt which arose from aid transfers in the 1950s
and 1960s. As your Minister of Finance told Parliament
at the time, the singular characteristic of this debt was
that, at maturity in the 21st century, it would have been
so huge that even tiny amounts of interest would have
perpetuated it indefinitely. Indefinite indebtedness is
not a condition that can obtain as between equals, and
for that reason the United States resolved to get rid of
the debt. That past is behind us.

One could wish that the myths of the past had been
laid to rest. But they have not been. These myths,
especially the myth of a bi-polar world divided between
the developed and the underdeveloped, continue to make
for a cold war of their own, a confrontation just as
threatening, just as devastating as the cold war itself.
For the economic world is as multi-polar as the political
and, if anything, more interdependent. There are greater
powers and lesser in the economic world, and here also
the preservation of power depends on its responsible use.
A generalized conviction of righteousness is no guarantee
against wrongdoing, and it is just as simpleminded of
nations to expect that their virtue will be taken at face

-12-

value in these confrontations as in earlier ones. What
has manifested itself in political matters is no less
so in economic ones. Events of the past year have not
been kind to the nations of South Asia for a generation
of economic progress and the social peace which would
go with it. Events have not been kind to the expectations
of progress in Europe, America, and Japan. We are all in
trouble, and in that sense have got in trouble together.
Surely, the myths of the developed and underdeveloped
world will not altogether suppress the possibility that
we might respond to our difficulty in concert.

For our part, as between our two nations, we hope
we shall; not least because we look for opportunities to
establish or reestablish joint Indo-U.S. understanding
of the kind which has seemed to diminish of late. Again,
myths surround us and block out light. There may have
been a time when Americans saw Indians busy around the
world interfering with American foreign policy. But if
that was ever the case it has ceased to be. There may
have been a time which saw Americans swarming about the
Subcontinent, and not least in India itself interfering
with Indian objectives. If that were the case, it has
long ceased to be. The Indian presence in the United States
has not diminished. If anything, it grows apace. We
welcome this, although I should say we have heard India's

-13-

concern about the migration to the United States of highly trained professionals, and we would like to respond. We are a nation of immigrants, as much as ever, and we are proud to be. More than half the Indians who leave India to settle overseas go to the United States. Many of those who have been heartlessly expelled from other nations have also settled in America. They are welcome here, yet there ought to be limits to the movement of persons with costly educations and costly skills from one nation to another, and we should be happy to discuss such limitations if the Government of India desires.

At the same time, we would wish to be clear that it has become a concern of ours that the American presence in India is so diminished, and seems likely to diminish further. The American Embassy in New Delhi does not have a list of American businessmen residing in India: the commercial counselor knows them by name. The same would be true of American scholars and students and other such persons. If there was such a thing as too many Indian doctors in America, we hope that it might also be thought that there is such a thing as too few Americans in India. Inequality in one direction should not be preceded by inequality in another. Similarly, if we find there is difficulty in meshing our economic systems, can we not learn from the success with which American business has

-14-

joined with Soviet enterprise in that country? It is,
perhaps, the case that as a people we do not have as
strong a collective memory as some others, but it is
a rare citizen of the United States who does not know
that Columbus was looking for India when he found
America. The connection was there at the beginning,
and it is our fond hope that it endures and deepens as
the adventure of our two great republics goes forward.

Palmer 10/7/74

Second Draft

ADDRESS BY
SECRETARY OF STATE
HENRY A. KISSINGER
WORLD FOOD CONFERENCE

November 5, 1974

We are gathered to meet an unprecedented challenge to man's most fundamental need. Within a single generation we must develop the capacity to produce at least twice as much food as man has achieved in his entire history. The projected doubling of the world's population compels us to launch a truly massive global effort -- or face the prospect of spreading malnutrition and starvation, domestic and international tension and the abandonment of mankind's aspirations for a more humane, prosperous and cooperative world.

For a quarter century we have assumed a supply of food at least adequate to prevent disaster -- nations confronted one another only over the problem of distribution. Now for the first time we face

-2-

an absolute global shortage -- in such a condition distribution alone
can no longer meet the need and confrontation will make the problem
completely unmanageable.

The problem of food requires us to decide the kind of world
we want to pass on to future generations. A world fragmented
into competing blocs or self-contained states will be a world
hostile to the cooperation required to meet man's need for food.
A global economy of energy shortages, rampant inflation, and
a trade and monetary system under stress will be an economy
of food shortages as well. The pursuit of narrow national
advantage in an increasingly interdependent world will bring
catastrophe.

To shape the world of the future we must begin with the
world as it is. We can no longer afford the luxury of outdated
generalities or sterile slogans.

-3-

-- The problem of food cannot be realistically perceived in terms of political ideology or economic status. There are poor nations which export food and rich nations which import. Socialist nations compete for food purchases and sales on international markets just as other developed and developing nations do.

-- The problem of food is not primarily what one group of nations can do for another but what each can contribute to meet the global need. Both the food surplus and food deficit developed nations can and must make a major contribution. The magnitude of the problem requires and the magnitude of their resources permits the oil producers to make a truly massive effort -- in financing, in fertilizer and perhaps most importantly by stabilizing and hopefully lowering the price of oil. And the

-4-

developing nations are both the most rapidly growing source of unmet demand and the most promising source of additional production.

-- And the problem of food can no longer be considered an exclusively national perogative. What each nation does or fails to do will determine the burdens placed on other nations and the world's capacity to sustain human life. A long-term balance between food production and population growth requires that national agriculture policies receive new priority. And it is self-evident that the world's population cannot indefinitely continue to double every generation. If man does not control population growth, the earth's capacity for producing food will eventually impose its own decision in the form of starvation.

Thus all nations bear an economic, political and moral obligation.

-5-

The United States recognizes its own national responsibility to contribute significantly to a collective effort. That is why we proposed this World Food Conference at last year's session of the General Assembly. That is why President Ford announced at this year's General Assembly that, despite our own economic difficulties, we would increase American food aid and food production assistance. And that is why the American farmer produced near-record crops this year despite adverse weather.

Today the United States proposes an unprecedented global effort to meet an unprecedented global problem. Bold measures are required - we will help initiate and support them. We want cooperation in food to set an example for cooperation in all areas of man's interdependence.

-6-

Therefore, let me set forth our views on the nature of
the problem, the dimensions of a global strategy, and the
elements of a concrete program of action.

I. The Nature of the Problem

The food problem has two dimensions -- first, the current
shortage of reserves to meet disasters and the continuing
pattern of widespread malnutrition and second, the long-term
challenge of achieving a balance between food production and
population growth.

The fear of famine, the fact of hunger have haunted
mankind throughout history. But the profound promise of our
era is that for the first time we may have the technical
capacity to free man from the struggle for food. Now we
must summon the political will to achieve that great goal.

-7-

During the decades of the 1950's and 60's world production
grew with great consistency. Total world production increased
by more than half. And despite high population growth rates
in the developing nations, even their per capita production
increased.

But in 1972 world cereal production declined for the first
time in twenty years as adverse weather struck across the
globe. And despite the fact that world crop weather was
generally excellent in 1973 and only a little below average in
1974 current reserves have declined to the point that a signifi-
cant crop failure today could produce a major disaster.

And we face a continuing reality in which hundreds of
millions of people do not get enough to eat to live decent
and productive lives. Since gains in food production are not

-8-

evenly distributed, the absolute numbers of malnourished people is actually greater today than ever before except in times of famine. In many parts of the world 30-50% of the children die between the ages of one and five, half of them from malnutrition. Many of those who survive have their intellectual and physical capacities permanently stunted.

The nature of the longer-term problem is equally stark. At present population growth rates, world food production will have to double by the end of this century just to maintain the present inadequate level of diets. If we are to have adequate diets, and surely this must be our goal, we will have to increase production 250% -- to more than three billion tons of food grains annually.

-9-

This is the quantitative challenge we are summoned to meet.

But the deeper challenge is to our political creativity. National agriculture policies are generally inward-looking and resistant to extending planning horizons beyond the next harvest.

-- But for farmers to meet the growing need governments must respond not just to national interests but to the global interest. National policies cannot be dictated just from narrow considerations of commercial advantage, but from a consciousness of the global need.

-- And the inability to look beyond the immediate situation creates the danger of perpetual oscillation between undue pessimism and premature optimism, between periods of panic and passivity. A single bad year encourages some to argue that we are witnessing the beginning of a

-10-

cataclysm, and in their despair to offer radical programs
neither developed nor developing nations can support.

A single good harvest encourages others to believe that
nothing fundamental has occurred, and in their complacency
to argue for a continuation of past policies.

Thus governments will be unable to sustain the massive effort
required unless they are capable of a broader, longer-term
approach to the problem.

## II. A Global Strategy

The central purpose of a global strategy must be to
achieve a balance between food and population that can be main-
tained over both good years and bad. We must meet the needs
of an expanding population, satisfy the aspiration for higher
nutritional standards, and free ourselves from the vagaries of
weather.

-11-

A comprehensive approach should set forth clear objectives in the three areas of *production, reserves* and *aid*:

First, *over the next quarter century we must more than double global production of food.* Production should be the central focus of our efforts for reserves and aid can only be provided if we grow more food.

To reach the goal of food sufficiency by the year 2000 agriculture will have to grow at 4% per annum versus the 2.7 % rate of the past decade. This will require a massive effort:

-- to substantially increase the priority of agriculture in national and international programs, particularly by increasing investment and production assistance.

-12-

-- to provide the vastly greater volume of inputs required, specifically by quadrupling fertilizer production.

-- to develop new technology for major breakthroughs and to better extend and apply existing technology.

-- to build the open, cooperative trade system that will provide an incentive for greater production and thus lower prices consumers can afford.

All nations have the opportunity and the obligation to contribute to these objectives:

-- The developing countries must devote a higher priority to meeting their peoples' rapidly growing need, for they have the lowest yields and the largest amounts of unused land and water in the world. Unless their agricultural productivity can be substantially increased there is

-13-

simply no way that the problem of feeding their hungry
people can be adequately resolved. If present trends
continue the gap between what they produce and what they
need to import could more than triple by 1985 to 70-90
million tons. This would be financially and physically
unmanageable.

-- The food deficit developed countries, particularly
the socialist nations, can vastly improve the efficiency
and productivity of their agriculture programs, and can
join in the effort to assist the developing nations.

-- As a large part of the problem for the developing countries
is the inability to finance the investments required for
greater food production, the oil producers can make a major
contribution from their surplus wealth.

-14-

— And the major food surplus nations must collaborate
in planning their production to meet world demand,
rationalizing distribution, and assisting the poorer
nations.

Second, to ensure that man's capacity to feed himself is
not dependent on annual variations in output and to meet
individual food emergencies, we must establish an international
system of food reserves. World crop weather was generally
excellent in 1973 and only a little below average in 1974. A
third good year would be just good luck. But there are
essentially no reserves which can be drawn upon in case 1975
crops are below consumption level. We must move urgently to
prevent the recurrence of such a precarious balance.

-15-

We believe that a global reserve of 190 million tons is required to protect the world community against the vagaries of weather and excessive price fluctuations. A major effort is essential to reach agreement to generate, maintain and manage at least this level of reserves.

Third, a substantial level of concessionary funds and food is required to prevent certain of the poorest nations from being overwhelmed, and to enable them to build the social, economic and political base for greater self-sufficiency. Beyond food reserves, a comprehensive effort to assure world food security must assist nations which suffer periodic or chronic shortfalls in production.

Our efforts should be guided by these principles:

- food aid must never be given at a level and permanence that discourages local production.

-16-

-- the burdens of food aid should be equitably shared

among the richer nations whether they are food surplus or deficit.

-- a careful judgment should be made between food aid and production assistance. Food aid brings both an earlier and more precise benefit, while help for production promotes the essential longer-term goals of more balanced economic growth, reduction of rural poverty and unemployment, and a greater global food supply.

### III. A Global Program of Action

It is easy to agree to another set of principles and objectives, to another grand design. But the test of our intentions is our will to translate talk into action.

-17-

Let me set forth what the United States believes is required to implement a global strategy and what we are prepared to contribute to a common effort.

A. To meet our objective in production:

First, we propose the formation of a Consultative Group on Food Production in Developing Countries to generate the massive investment and production assistance required. The group would bring together traditional aid donors, the oil producers, representatives of the developing countries and relevant multilateral organizations.

The United States will do its share. We have already budgeted an increase of almost $400 million for production assistance in FY 1975.

-18-

Second, to quadruple fertilizer production these steps are required.

-- A central purpose of new investment must be to help developing countries build local fertilizer industries and to provide fertilizer on a concessional basis.

-- We must improve the efficiency of existing fertilizer facilities in the developing countries. Plants should not be running at 60% of capacity in the face of severe fertilizer shortages. The United States has launched a major program of technical assistance to help improve the efficiency of existing plants.

-- And we must improve the efficiency of fertilizer itself.

The International Plant Nutrition Institute which I proposed at the Special Session of the UN General

-19-

Assembly opened its doors last month with funds
provided by Canada and the United States.

Third, to initiate new research leading to technological
breakthroughs the network of international agriculture research
centers should be substantially strengthened. We propose that
from $40
their budgets be increased to $100 million by 1980. The United
States is prepared to double its present contribution to $40 million.

And the United States is prepared to share the benefits of its
own technology. For example, early next year our space,
agriculture and weather agencies will begin the extended testing
of advanced satellite techniques for surveying and forecasting
important food crops. If this experiment proves effective, it
should reduce the great uncertainties which annually plague both
producers and consumers. The results of our work will be

-20-

made available to the world as a vital step toward rational
planning of global food production.

Fourth, to build the open, cooperative trade system
required to spur food production and lower prices we must
achieve a common understanding of the practices which govern
the international economy. The United States is prepared to join in
further opening markets so that the forces of supply and demand
can provide farmers an incentive to produce more food and consumers the
prospect of reasonable prices. But the production and sale of all
commodities required to meet man's basic needs must be
governed by the same rules. The attempt to maintain oil prices
at a high level by restricting production in the face of a desperate
global need is as unacceptable as we would find that same practice
in food. And the denial of oil for political purpose is as intolerable
as would be the denial of food.

-21-

Finally, to meet their special responsibilities for maximizing production and distribution, the major food surplus nations should concert their efforts. Only four countries, plus those of the European Community, account for about 90 percent of the world's surplus production of grains -- the most basic food. The United States will soon approach the other surplus producers with a program of cooperation.

B. To meet our objective of a global food reserve:

The United States is pleased to join today with a group of the world's major producers and consumers of grain in announcing our intention to establish an international system of grain reserves. We will meet at an early date to negotiate a detailed agreement.

Such an agreement should include the following points:

-22-

-- A full exchange of information among participants on reserve and working stock levels, crop prospects and import-export intentions.

-- The size of global reserves required to protect the world community against famine and excessive price fluctuations.

-- The distribution of the responsibility for holding reserves among the participating countries.

-- Guidelines on the management of national reserves, in particular as to when it is appropriate to add to reserves and when to release grain.

-- Measures against major countries who should participate but who choose not to do so and against participants who do not conform to the agreed guidelines for purchase and sale.

-23-

-- A committee of the participants to consult regularly about the functioning of the scheme, including invocation of measures for non-compliance, adjustments of targets and settlement of disputes. They might also be called for special sessions to recommend actions which participants should consider when serious fluctuations in grain production threaten market disruption.

C. To meet our objective of preventing the poorest nations from being overwhelmed:

The United States proposes the establishment of a Food Aid Donors Coordinating Group to generate the funds and food required by bringing together both traditional donors and the other rich nations. While our central concern must be to increase developing nations' production, the poorest nations face a predictable gap for several decades between what

-24-

they produce or can afford to import; and their total need.

The essence of this problem is not lack of food in the world as a whole, but the financing of adequate distribution. Thus, the solution to this problem does not rest with the surplus food producers alone but with all the rich countries which alone have the financial means to make these transfers.

The United States will make a major and continuing contribution to a common effort. I am pleased to announce today that we will increase funding for our food aid effort by $450 million in FY 1975 to a total of $1.35 billion.

Within the group of poorest nations, there are cases which warrant our special concern. We have been deeply preoccupied during the past two years with the threat of famine in the draught stricken countries of the sahel and neighboring areas

-25-

of Africa. Floods in Bangladesh threaten to wash away that
new nation's striving for development. Other nations face
grave conditions.

The United States proposes the establishment of an Inter-
national Trust Fund to help the hardest hit survive. We are
prepared to contribute up to twenty-five percent of an initial
five year funding of $4 billion.
*

* (Obtaining the use of AID reflows for this purpose will require a major effort on your part within the Administration and work with those on the Hill like Senator Kennedy who are sympathetic. AID believes the idea of a multiyear/multidonor effort in the Sahel should be saved for the 1976 budget submission. I disagree. We have been heralding our program for the World Food Conference for a year and now need to show what the United States is willing to do. The game of mirrors can only take us so far.)

-26-

## CONCLUSION

Let me conclude.

Mankind is reaching for something higher and better than he has ever known. Once famine was considered part of the normal cycle of man's existence, a matter for local or at most national concern. Now our achievements, our expectations, and our values have raised food to the level of international concern.

-27-

-- And let us seek to make global cooperation in food a model for such other challenges of an interdependent world as energy, inflation, and the environment.

This decade is a pivotal period in man's endeavor not just to survive but to ennoble his life on this planet. The direction we take at this conference will be of fundamental importance -- for our ability to feed ourselves is fundamental to the future.

Palmer 9/7/74
First Draft

November 5, 1974

Mr. Secretary General, distinguished delegates, ladies and
gentlemen.

The fear of famine, the fact of hunger have haunted mankind
throughout history. No tragedy is greater than the look in the eyes
of a starving child. Nothing more overwhelms the human spirit nor
debilitates the body than a fruitless search for sustenance.

Now we must summon the political will to achieve that great
goal. For a condition in which one billion people suffer from
malnutrition, in which a significant crop failure could spell disaster,
and in which fundamental questions about the future have no clear
answers is simply unacceptable.

Our presence implies our recognition that a challenge of this
magnitude cannot be met in one year, or by one nation, or even by
any one group of nations. Meeting man's long-term need for food
requires a long-term strategy for global cooperation, one all nations
can support and sustain over the decades ahead.

-2-

Even more fundamentally, the problem of food requires us to decide the kind of world we want to pass on to future generations. A world fragmented into competing blocs or self-contained states will be a world hostile to humanitarian cooperation. A global economy of energy shortages, rampant inflation, and a trade and monetary system under stress will be an economy of food shortages as well. The pursuit of narrow national advantage in an increasingly interdependent world will bring catastrophe.

Let me summarize the United States' views on the major issues before us.

First, the food situation poses severe human, economic and political problems for all nations. Isolated solutions are impossible. Even surplus countries, like Canada and the United States, confront difficult choices in the face of global shortage. This challenge can be met successfully only if we choose the path of concerted international action. It will become unmanageable if we do not.

Second, the food problem cannot be realistically perceived in terms of political ideology or economic status. There are poor nations which export food and rich nations which import. Socialist nations compete for food purchases and sales on international markets just as other developed and developing nations do. A

-3-

global food policy must proceed from the fact that we are part
of a single international economic system on which all of our
national economic objectives depend.

Third, the developing nations are both the most profoundly
affected of all and the most promising source of additional production.
A major concern of this conference must be the immediate needs
of the nations who have suffered most from the unprecedented
rise in fuel, fertilizer and food prices. But our long-term
objective must be to help these nations realize their potential, for they have
the lowest yields and the largest amounts of unused land and water
in the world. While the need for a substantial commitment to aid will
in the interests of
continue over the next several decades, both developing and developed
nations to define a strategy which will eliminate the donor-
recipient relationship over the longer term.

Fourth, a global policy must provide the food required to feed
twice as many people by the end of this century as we are feeding now.
No matter what individuals and nations do today, the world's popula-
tion will double in the next thirty years. But we must begin to decide
today what a long-term balance between food production and population
growth implies. It is self-evident that the world's population cannot
indefinitely continue to double every generation. If man does not

-4-

decide what the earth's capacity to sustain human life may be, then
the controls of which Malthus spoke will eventually impose themselves.

Fifth, all nations have a special contribution to make to a cooperative global approach. The magnitude of the problem requires, and the magnitude of their resources permits, the oil producers to make a truly massive effort -- in aid, in fertilizer, and perhaps most importantly by stabilizing and hopefully lowering the price of oil. And both deficit and surplus developed nations can share the burden of maintaining food reserves and providing food aid.

Sixth, the United States recognizes its own national responsibility to contribute significantly to a collective solution. That is why we proposed this World Food Conference at last year's session of the General Assembly. That is why President Ford announced a major program of American food aid and food production assistance at this year's General Assembly. And that is why the American farmer produced near-record crops this year despite severe drought. If all nations make similar efforts --in food, energy, and inflation -- we will have laid a solid foundation for long-term cooperation across the entire spectrum of our mutual interests.

The Food Problem

The food problem has three dimensions - first, the current shortages; second, the continuing pattern of widespread hunger; third, the long-term challenge of achieving a balance between food production and population growth.

The divergence of views on the nature of today's shortages demonstrates the necessity for a long-term perspective.

On the one-hand some point to the encouraging fact that over the past two decades world production has grown with great consistency. Total world production has increased by more than half. And despite high population growth rates in the developing nations, even their per capita production has grown.

On the other -hand we face the equally obvious fact that in 1972 world cereal production declined for the first time in twenty years as adverse weather struck across the globe. As a result current reserves have declined to the point that a significant crop failure today could produce a major disaster.

We have seen two interpretations of this situation. Some argue that nothing fundamental has occurred, that all we need is the confidence to persevere along former lines. Others argue that we are witnessing the beginning of a cataclysm, and in their despair offer solutions neither developed nor developing nations will support.

-6-

But the world's continuing hunger imposes upon us an obligation both for innovation and realism. Our dispute over the immediate situation threatens us with perpetual oscillation between premature optimism and undue pessimism.

Governments will be overwhelmed by day-to-day crises if they are incapable of a broader perception of the problem.

Whatever the nature of the current shortage, we face a continuing reality in which hundreds of millions of people do not get enough to eat to live decent and productive lives. In many parts of the world 30-50% of the children die between the ages of one and five, half of them from malnutrition. And many of those who survive have their intellectual and physical capacities permanently stunted.

Since gains in food production are not evenly distributed, the absolute numbers of malnourished and hungry people in the world is actually greater today than ever before except in times of famine.

And the nature of the longer-term problem is/clear. At present population growth rates, world food production will have to double by the end of this century just to maintain the present inadequate level of diets. If we are to have adequate diets, and surely this must be our goal, we will have to increase production by 2 1/2 times -- to more than three billion tons of food grains annually.

-7-

This is the quantitative challenge we are summoned to meet.
But there is another dimension to the challenge before us. For we are
considering the transformation of an enormous and widely
scattered countryside, profound changes in the social and economic
institutions governing a majority of mankind, and a radical shift
in national agricultural policies which are generally inward-looking,
protectionist, and resistant to extending planning horizons beyond
the next harvest.

Thus the deeper challenge is to our political creativity -- to
of food
perceive the problem/in a global context and to summon the political
will to transform that vision into a concrete program of action.

## A Eight Point Program for Cooperation

An effective action plan to attack the world food problem
requires an unprecedented level of international cooperation. All
nations have the capacity, the opportunity and therefore the
responsibility to make a significant contribution.

The United States is prepared to join with the nations
assembled here to make a truly massive effort toward this major
goal: the assurance of an adequate supply of food at a reasonable
cost to every man, woman and child in the world. This is a
technical possibility, a political necessity and a moral imperative.

- 8 -

A comprehensive approach is required. I would like to
offer today not an American prescription, but our thoughts on
eight key elements of a global policy.

1. **Production:** Over the next quarter century we must more than double global food production. This must be the central focus of our efforts for other problems -- of malnutrition, food aid, reserves and price -- can only be resolved if we grow more food.

Given the present low yields per acre in most developing
countries and the fact that the most suitable agricultural land
in the developed countries is now being exploited, the main
potential for increased world foodgrain production lies in
the developing world. It is essential that their governments
give food production high priority claim on the human and
material resources available to them. Where this is done,
the richer countries should give high priority to providing
additional external assistance.

President Ford announced in September that the United
States would increase our food production assistance by
$______ million to $____$ million. We hope that other
countries will make a similar contribution.

-9-

A major effort is required to identify in each country, often in regions within countries, and for individual major food crops, the package of actions which will jointly achieve the greatest increase in production efficiency. In some areas it will be more profitable to grow export crops or produce other goods and use the proceeds to pay for needed food imports. But in many cases, measures based on existing experience and knowledge can and must be taken now to bring about substantial increases in production.

Special reference needs to be given to the unrealized production capacity of small farmers. For it is the individual farmer who will make the major decisions which determine the world's capacity to feed itself. This means that farmers -- wherever they are in the world -- must be provided the tools and the financial incentives to expand production. This process will stimulate output, increase farm income and reduce consumer food expenditures.

To insure a continuing and coordinated international focus on the issue of production, the United States proposes the formation of a Consultative Group on Food Production in Developing Countries. The Group's central purpose

- 9a -

would be to help provide the planning and coordination of
investment in food production, fertilizer, storage and
related fields that is now lacking. Organized and staffed
by the World Bank, the Group would bring together multi-
lateral and bilateral donors, interested UN agencies, and
regional representatives of the developing countries.*

*This is Ambassador Martin's still
tentative alternative to a World Food
Authority. I have not included a
special section on the WFA in this
draft as our bureaucracy now opposed
to it -- see issues paper -- and I do
not know your views.

-10-

2. **Fertilizer:** To reach our goal of food sufficiency by the turn of the century, we must quadruple global fertilizer production. This is perhaps the single most important input for greater food production.

Three steps are urgently required.

- First, we must improve the efficiency of existing fertilizer facilities in the developing countries. Plants should not be running at 60% of capacity in the face of severe fertilizer shortages. The United States is prepared to offer technical assistance to those countries which desire it.

- Second, we must build new capacity to meet the substantial annual increase in demand. The oil producers, virtually alone, possess the financial means and the raw materials to make the massive effort required. And they could assist other developing countries both by helping build local fertilizer plants and by providing fertilizer on a concessional basis.

- Third, we must improve the efficiency of fertilizer itself. The International Plant Nutrition Institute which I proposed at the Special Session of the UN General Assembly is well on its way to establishment.

-11-

We are prepared both to host the Institute and to
provide a substantial portion of its budget.

3. **Research and Development:** A new effort to strengthen and expand international, regional and national research programs is essential. As we look not only to the next 5 - 10 years, but to the year 2000 and beyond it is clear that our greatest resource may be man's scientific and technical genius. We face two challenges:

- First, to disseminate existing technology will require intensified efforts

in adaptive research, in training of specialists, and
above all, in expanded and sustained information and
education services in rural communities and the more
remote small farm area.

- Second, the population food balance is too precarious
as we look beyond the year 2000 not to apply our best
minds and substantial resources on ideas which may
now seem impractical, difficult, risky or at least of
only long-term value. There are no panaceas but we
must constantly search for promising areas to explore.

For example:

- To improve the nutritive quality of existing foods
  such as high lysine corn.

- To discover new sources of food such as aquaculture.

- 12 -

-- To find ways to eliminate such diseases and pests as the tse-tse fly which would add seven million square kilometers to agricultural lands, an area larger than the agricultural area of the United States.

4. Reserves: To ensure that man's capacity for dealing with famine is no longer dependent upon the vagaries of weather, we must rebuild the world's food reserves. World crop weather was generally excellent in 1973 and only a little below average in 1974. A third good year would be just good luck. But there are essentially no reserves which can be drawn upon in case 1975 crops are below consumption level. We must move urgently to prevent the recurrence of such a precarious balance.

(or - "to join today with")

The United States is pleased to announce today on behalf of/
a group of the world's major producers and consumers of
grain our intention to establish an international system of
grain reserves and to meet at an early date to negotiate a
detailed agreement.

- 13 -

-- Measures discriminating against major countries who should participate but who choose not to do so and against participants who do not conform to the agreed guidelines for purchase and sale.

-- A committee of the participants to consult regularly about the functioning of the scheme, including invocation of discriminatory measures, adjustments of targets and settlement of disputes. They might also be called for special sessions to recommend actions which participants should consider when serious fluctuations in grain production threaten market disruption.

- 14 -

5. **Food Aid:** A substantial and sustained level of concessionary food aid is required to prevent the poorest nations from being overwhelmed, and to enable them to build the social, economic and political base for greater self-sufficiency. Beyond food resources, a comprehensive effort to assure world food security must assist nations which suffer periodic or chronic shortfalls in production, with particular attention to the least advantaged and most vulnerable sectors of their population.

Our efforts must be guided by these three principles:

- First, food aid must never be given at a level and permanence that discourages local production.

- Second, a careful judgment should be made between food aid and production assistance. Food aid brings both an earlier and more precise benefit to a country short of both foreign exchange and food, while help for production promotes the essential longer-term goals of a more balanced economic growth, a reduction of rural poverty and unemployment, and a greater global food supply.

- Third, the burdens of food aid should be equitably shared among the richer nations whether they are food surplus or deficit.

- 15 -

The United States would welcome a forum in which
principal donors of food aid could discuss informally
each year prospective needs, availabilities, and modalities
with respect to the ensuing year.

This is the 20th anniversary of the American food aid
program - PL-480. The surplus which made it relatively
easy for Americans to make a twenty-five billion dollar
contribution in agricultural commodities has now disappeared.
The test of our commitment has arrived.

President Ford's food aid announcement at the UN
General Assembly demonstrated that the United States
remains determined to banish hunger and starvation from
the world.

6. The Sahel: We must launch a special effort to meet the special needs of the Sahel. We have been deeply pre-occupied during the past two years with the threat of famine in the drought stricken countries of the sahel and neighboring areas of Africa. There are reports of better rainfall in the sahel this year. But if the predictions of the experts are correct, the sahel will remain a major food deficit area for the foreseeable future. We cannot stand idly by and watch the people of these nations be overwhelmed.

We must launch a massive effort to help the sahelian peoples expand agricultural production. This will entail vast capital expenditures for education, machinery, fertilizers, and for scientific programs to develop more suitable varieties of plants and strains of livestock.

If we are to measure up to the challenge of the sahel, the community of nations must now, without further delay, establish effective institutional structures for carrying out the task before us and ensuring that this great undertaking will be adequately financed. We are therefore proposing the formation of an international consortium of donor nations.

This consortium would join with the United Nations Special Sahelian Office and the Interstate Committee that has been formed by the sahelian states themselves to attack the fundamental ecological and developmental problems that face these countries.

The United States is prepared to contribute up to twenty-five percent to an International Sahel Trust Fund.

We hope that the other members of this body will cooperate with us in this venture-- not only the countries that have traditionally provided development assistance, but especially the oil producing states whose revenues have risen so dramatically during the past months and which therefore now find themselves

- 17 -

in a position to help some of the less fortunate among the
developing countries.

* This initiative could involve Congressional approval of $200 million a year for five years of AID reflows. This one billion dollar program would more than double our present effort and could generate a serious international program to save the sahel. Informal soundings on the Hill are positive but we would have to do more serious consultations before an announcement. Senator Kennedy is launching in the next few weeks an even broader effort to use these funds for the sahel, Bangladesh and other hardest hit. Dan Parker believes this could reinforce the above initiative but wants to talk with you before we go any further.

7. Major Surplus Countries: New means are required to ensure that the world's major food surplus countries meet their special opportunity and obligation to collaborate in planning their production to meet world demand. Most countries of the world either just meet their own food requirements or depend to varying degrees upon imports from surplus food producers. Only four countries, plus those of the European Community, account for about 90 per cent of the world's surplus production of grains -- the most basic food. We are now entering the third year of a period of world-wide short supply of grains -- despite maximum efforts by this small circle to produce at least enough to

- 18 -

continue to meet the minimum need for a 2-1/2 per cent
annual increase in the world's grain supply. For its part,
the United States has returned 40 million acres to crop
production. Other major agricultural suppliers have
similarly responded to the present need.

But for the longer term, means must be found to insure
that the use of production potential continues to respond to
consumption requirements.

Several things are required:

-- Advance information about the food needs of deficit countries -- especially those whose needs fluctuate widely from year to year.

-- A predictable food aid requirement.

-- A reserve system that would accumulate surplus food in favorable periods which, in the absence of this market, would not otherwise be produced.

Each of these is an element of a solution to the world food problem, but collectively they form a basis for another element of the solution -- collaboration among the surplus food producers in planning their production to meet world demand. The market signals, upon which we and others have relied in the past, still will play the key role in fostering production changes. But we

- 19 -

need to anticipate these signals. The world no longer can
afford to wait for one or more crop cycles to pass before
adjusting to changes in the global food supply. Like other
elements of a solution to the world food problem, international
cooperation is the basis for coordination of production plans
to maximize output by the surplus producers.

The United States would be pleased to host an initial
meeting of the world's major surplus nations.

8. **Global Trade and Monetary System: A structure of world trade and finance which encourages stability and growth is essential to the prospects for food.** It would be a grave error to think the problem of food could be resolved in isolation.

Our efforts will be frustrated if the global economy is overwhelmed by attempts to impose national or bloc advantage, or by a retreat into protectionism.

We must move forward on these fronts:

- First, a central objective of the Multilateral Trade Negotiations must be to reduce and regulate the barriers to freer trade in agriculture commodities.
  This is particularly in the interest of developing a countries which earn major share of their foreign exchange from agricultural exports. The United States

- 20 -

is prepared to help accelerate the pace of these
negotiations now that our own Trade Bill has
passed.

-- Second, the United States proposes that a group of the key commodity exporting and importing nations join together to negotiate new general principles to govern trade in all non-oil primary commodities; specific rules and procedures governing access to suppliers of such commodities; agreements as necessary on particular commodities.*

-- Third, the new wealth and power of the oil producers imposes upon them a special responsibility for the global economy as a whole and for the nations most affected by the oil price rises in particular. They are the only nations with sufficient resources surplus to their current needs to make the massive new effort required to achieve global food sufficiency. Their response must be equal to the magnitude of the problem.

*

EB + S/P preparing issues paper
if this initiative is appealing, see uncleared issues
paper at TAB A.