Foreign Relations of the United States, 1917–1972, Volume VII, Public Diplomacy, 1964–1968

84. Policy Program Directive Prepared in the Office of Policy, United States Information Agency¹

No. 4–4–66

Washington, April 15, 1966

U.S. FOOD AID AND TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE

Policy

Food supplies and population growth are two sides of a major world problem. It is a problem with political as well as economic and humanitarian overtones. It affects the stability and economic advancement of all peoples, especially those in the developing lands.

These lands, with their traditional agriculture, are losing their ability to feed themselves as populations grow and demands increase. Many which were food exporters have now become food importers.

Present food-exporting nations such as the United States have helped fill the food gap in recent years. They cannot feed the world indefinitely. U.S. commodity stockpiles are declining. U.S. productive capacity and reserves are adequate to help feed the hungry nations for a while. But the U.S., even if it put all idle acres into production, would not be able to meet the food needs of the world for more than 10 or 15 years.

The U.S. can increase its food aid even though its stockpiles are reduced. But this food aid must become part of a vast effort to modernize agriculture in less-developed countries. The major U.S. export must be technical know-how.

It is clear that most of the additional food needs of the hungry nations must be met through the expansion of their own food production. Unless these nations move to expand their own production now, the food gap will be even greater in the future.

As President Johnson said in the new Food for Freedom program he proposed to Congress on February 10, 1966, “The key to victory is self-help.”²

Food Supply: In many developing countries, increasing food demands resulting from rapid population growth—and in some instances from rising incomes as well—are outstripping food production plus feasible imports. This means that less-developed countries must step up their own food production, improve their agricultural policies, and put more emphasis on agriculture.

The U.S. is prepared to help in these efforts, and is putting more emphasis on agriculture in its foreign aid. Wherever appropriate, the U.S. is prepared to relate its food aid to self-help measures which less-developed countries take to improve their own agricultural production or to accelerate their own economic development in general.

The relationship between food aid and self-help is underscored in the President’s proposed Food for Freedom program, through which the U.S. would lead the world in a “war against hunger.” This program envisages use of the vast productive capacity and know-how of American agriculture to help meet world needs. It thus would get away from the frequently troublesome concept of surplus disposal under Public Law 480.³ Farm products would not have to be in surplus to be available under the Food for Freedom program. It would gradually phase out over a five-year period the present policy of selling commodities for local currencies, and would make food aid available on much the same terms as other economic development assistance: credit sale for dollars, repayable over a long term and at a low interest rate.

The U.S. also is prepared to increase its participation in realistic regional and multilateral efforts to help meet food needs, and would like to see other developed countries—both food exporters and importers—assume an appropriate share of the food aid burden. Such assistance may take the form of contributions in kind (food, fertilizer, pesticides, shipping services, technical assistance) or in cash.

Food aid alone is the road to disaster. Food aid must be a tool of technical aid—a means by which less-developed countries can boost their own production.

Nutrition: Food aid must also relate to the food needs of the hungry nations. New medical evidence indicates that serious malnutrition, especially protein and vitamin deficiencies, can permanently retard young children—physically and mentally. As adults, they may not be able to do a full day’s work. Improved nutrition thus not only serves the humanitarian purpose of relieving hunger and misery, but also contributes to progress.

The U.S. is enriching its Food for Peace shipments where it can to help overcome these deficiencies, and is working with recipient countries and with private industry to develop special foods to help meet nutritional needs. U.S. efforts by themselves cannot solve the problem, however. Local agricultural, health, industrial and commodity development programs all can contribute to improved nutrition. Local production of fortified and formulated foods can be increased, with technical and financial help—public and private—from the U.S.

Population: Concerned with the problems which rapidly rising populations pose in developing lands, the U.S. has expressed a willingness to help, both to improve statistical understanding of the problem and to establish and expand voluntary programs of family planning. Where appropriate, the U.S. is prepared to give top priority to sound technical cooperation proposals.

The U.S. recognizes that agricultural and nutritional improvement will have limited effect in the long run if rapid population growth continues to outrun available food. Hence, to be effective these programs must be coupled with intelligent efforts at population control and family planning.

Treatment

We want all audiences to understand and accept the following propositions:

(1) Every country has an important stake in the search for solutions to problems of food shortage and malnutrition amid an unprecedented increase in world population. These problems represent not only moral and humanitarian issues for all governments, but also potential threats to the political stability and aspirations of food-short nations.

(2) It is important that every country in a position to contribute toward solutions of these problems do so as best it can, through unilateral and multilateral means. It is clear, however, that the combined food exports and reserves of the food-abundant nations could not begin to fill the growing gap between food supply and food demand. Food aid can help to solve, but cannot accomplish alone, the task of meeting the food needs of food-deficient developing countries. Recipients in turn should relate food aid, no less than other forms of economic assistance, to effective self-help measures.

(3) The future stability of each less-developed country requires it to give highest priority to agricultural development and population growth within the overall effort to achieve satisfactory standards of living. These priorities do not impede, but actually enhance other forms of development—e.g., industrial. Application of scientific knowledge to correct a national imbalance between agricultural development and population growth can advance a developing nation toward the goals of overall development.

(4) World food problems concern quality as well as quantity. Their solutions require not only determined self-help in food-short countries to increase per acre yields, but also more emphasis on such key factors as improved nutrition and education in nutritional practices, avoiding waste and spoilage, improving food distribution, and effective incentives for farmers.

In the above framework, emphasize the following points:

—The U.S. is concerned with the world’s food problem, and will continue to do what it can to forestall and alleviate hunger and improve nutrition in food-deficient lands.

—The U.S. has a notable record of food and technical assistance. Its Food for Peace and technical agricultural assistance program has served both humanitarian and economic ends. (Where possible, translate these accomplishments into human terms to show their impact on people.) This includes, for example, special feeding programs for children; special emergency and disaster donations; sale of foods for local currencies, research on improved crops and livestock, soil and water conservation, farm credit, and improved marketing. Note that in its sales of surplus commodities under the Food for Peace program, the U.S. has been careful not to disrupt normal international markets and has consulted with other exporting nations whose sales might be affected by concessional sales programs. This practice will be continued.

—The President’s proposed Food for Freedom program,⁴ which must be approved by Congress before it becomes effective (a point worth noting while it is applicable), would further enhance U.S. assistance efforts by removing the limitations of surplus commodity disposal and putting food aid on a continuing long-term basis geared to supply-demand considerations. By relating food aid to overall development planning and local self-help efforts, it also would provide a realistic and workable incentive to needed agricultural improvements in developing lands.

—In private as well as public capacities, the American people are ready to share their well-being with peoples of other nations. In addition to government transactions, private nonprofit organizations in the U.S. cooperate in the Food for Peace program, and otherwise help meet food needs abroad. Private American companies play an important role in helping to meet local requirements for more and better food by providing (1) needed equipment and supplies, (2) capital investments (often jointly with local sources), and (3) technical know-how to help build up local production of fertilizers and pesticides; to develop more efficient storage and distribution methods and facilities; and to fill other related needs. This role of private industry can be enlarged where feasible with appropriate encouragement from abroad.

—Where developing countries take the initiative in giving increased attention to population problems, the U.S. is ready to assist. U.S. support of national and international efforts toward a solution of such problems is based on two premises: (1) free choice for the individual, and (2) increased availability of knowledge to the individual for making this choice.

—Self-help efforts by developing countries to increase agricultural production and marketing embrace a wide range of activities from both public and private sources. They include the use of more and better seeds, equipment, fertilizers, pesticides and other supplies; flood control and irrigation; better cultural practices; better storage and distribution to avoid waste and spoilage; incentives to farmers—land tenure and farm credit policies, etc.—which will elicit from them a maximum production effort. In all of these the U.S., with its notably productive agriculture, has the kind of broad experience and know-how which can be applied effectively to the problems of other nations.

Throughout, make clear that the task of increasing agricultural production and meeting food needs will not be easy. It requires the wholehearted attention and effort of developing countries. It is far from hopeless if undertaken in a determined and intelligent manner. A number of less developed lands have made notable strides in this direction, to the benefit of the entire developmental process. Progress of this kind can be usefully cited to audiences elsewhere. To the extent, moreover, that increased production helps reduce dependence on imports (this may include fertilizers, for instance, as well as food), or enhances the capability to expand agricultural exports, it also helps build up foreign exchange needed to advance the total economic development of a nation.

SOME PERTINENT BACKGROUND READING

President Johnson’s Message to Congress on the Foreign Aid Program, February 1, 1966.

President Johnson’s Message to Congress on Food for Freedom, February 10, 1966.

Passages on foreign aid in the budget of the United States Government for the Fiscal Year ending June 30, 1967.

Economic Report of the President, together with the Annual Report of the Council of Economic Advisers, January, 1966.

Food for Peace Program Charts.

Background Memorandum, “The Foreign Assistance Act of 1966,” Agency for International Development, Program for Fiscal Year 1967.

“Food for Freedom,” February 10, 1966, by Departments of State and Agriculture and Agency for International Development.

“Changes In Agriculture in Twenty-Six Developing Nations 1948–1963,” Department of Agriculture, November 23, 1965.

International Development Review, December 1965: “Unsolved Problems of International Development,” by Walt W. Rostow.

AIDTO Circular A 342, April 13, 1965, “Fiscal Year 1967 Program Submission.”

AIDTO Circular A 18, July 20, 1965, “Combatting Malnutrition in the Preschool Child.”

Secretary of Agriculture Freeman’s address at Biennial Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, Italy, November 23, 1965: “Hope for Hungry Nations.”

Secretary of Agriculture Freeman’s statement before the House Committee on Agriculture, February 23, 1966.

CEDTO 870, March 17, 1966, “World Food Problem.”

Food for Peace, Monthly Newsletter published by Food for Peace Office.

Foreign Agriculture, Weekly Magazine published by Foreign Agriculture Service, Department of Agriculture.

1. Source: National Archives, RG 306, Director’s Subject Files, 1963–1967, Entry UD WW 101, Box 6, Policy & Plans—General 1966. Limited Official Use. Anderson sent a copy of the Policy Program Directive to all USIA Assistant Directors and USIS posts under an April 15 memorandum indicating that the guidance was the fourth in a series of policy program directives. (Ibid.)
2. In a February 10 special message to Congress, Johnson indicated that he planned to revamp the Food for Peace program renaming it “Food for Freedom,” and emphasize self-help initiatives as a condition for PL–480 agreements. For text of the message, and Johnson’s statement on it, see Public Papers: Johnson, 1966, Book I, pp. 163–169.
3. See footnote 2, Document 81.
4. Although Congress rejected the proposed name change of the Act to “Food for Freedom,” Johnson signed the Food for Peace Act of 1966 into law (PL 89–808, 80 Stat. 1526) on November 12. (See Robert B. Semple, Jr., “President Signs Food Peace Plan But Scores Curbs,” New York Times, November 13, 1966, p. 1; and Chesly Manly, “U.S. Overseas Aid Cost Soars to 10 Billions,” Chicago Tribune, November 13, 1966, p. 1)