254. Letter From Secretary of Agriculture Bergland to the Chairman of the Presidential Commission on World Hunger (Linowitz)1
I wish to pass along some additional concerns and ideas to you which I hope will enhance and complement the materials that USDA has been furnishing the Commission up to this time. As I mentioned in my talk to the Commission,2 our relations with the developing nations regarding the world food situation are of particular importance. We must help these countries increase indigenous food production and also help them economically so that they become viable participants in world trade. At this time, however, I would like to stress the importance of the U.S. linkages to all nations with regard to solving the world hunger problem.
U.S. agricultural and food policy functions increasingly in an international environment. There is a growing interdependence among countries in the production, consumption, and trade of food. The U.S. economy has become more dependent on other countries as commercial markets for our food and agricultural output, and other countries have become increasingly dependent upon the United States as a source of supply for food and agricultural products.
Within the interdependent environment, important international considerations for U.S. agricultural and food policy are emerging. Especially significant are those interrelated issues that deal with domestic supply and demand, commercial agricultural trade, international agricultural development, and food security. Three areas of concern that I [Page 833] wish to elaborate further on are the need for a national food policy based upon knowledge of nutrition, the need to encourage economic development in the developing countries, and the need to provide for world food security.
A National Food Policy
Traditionally, we have viewed food policy simply as a summation of our agricultural policies pertaining to the production and pricing of agricultural commodities. The time has come for the development of an explicit national food policy derived from knowledge of the nutritional requirements of our people. The goal of this policy should be to make available an adequate supply of safe, nutritious food at stable, reasonable prices while providing an adequate return to farmers, processors, retailers, and workers in the industry. There are, however, serious voids in our knowledge base from which this type of national food policy might be constructed. For example, we know less than we should about the nutritional status of various socioeconomic segments of our population, and the relationships between human health and nutrition. Guidance and recommendations from the Commission in these complex interrelated areas would be a valuable contribution to our approach to a national food policy.
Economic Development Assistance
I would agree with the following statement found in the recent Academy of Sciences study on world food and nutrition.3 “The maldistribution of food can best be corrected over the longer term by providing poor people with the means and opportunities to produce or purchase more food,” and further that, “the major immediate cause of hunger is poverty.” Poverty here is defined as the lack of resources with which to buy or produce food. This classical cycle of poverty combines insufficient food with disease, apathy, and other effects of poverty to foster malnutrition and lower human productivity which in turn result in low income levels.
As you know, the maldistribution of food is more complex than a simple classification of countries into those with more than enough food and those with too little food. What we really observe are pockets of poverty or segments of populations within countries that do not have the means to purchase adequate levels of food. In attempting to measure the scope of this problem, however, there is often a tendency to confuse need and effective economic demand. Need is based upon a minimal requirement necessary for a human being to function at some level of productive activity. Thus total need, national or international, [Page 834] is based upon this per capita requirement, however defined, times population. Unfortunately, need alone does not generate an effective means for obtaining the required food or allocating productive resources to produce food.
Effective economic demand, on the other hand, implies that income or goods or resources are available to an individual or country to use in an exchange for food or for investing in production. Therefore, I suggest that one part of the solution to malnutrition and hunger would be to transform need to demand with employment and income creating policies and programs in the developing countries.
The effective use of economic development assistance to alleviate hunger and malnutrition over the long run will depend upon the ability of donor and recipient countries to devise and implement development programs that effectively link food availability to investment in productive activity and employment generation which result in the improved nutritional status of the population.
Additionally, I believe that U.S. development assistance should have the long term goal of complementing a developing country’s own efforts towards self-reliance. Development should be directed towards building a strong and self-sustaining domestic economy able to participate fully in international trade. The concept of self-reliance should not be confused with self-sufficiency. The strategy of self-reliance would be based upon comparative advantage and would allow a country to reap the benefits of trade. This would avoid the mistake of self-sufficiency regardless of cost which, in my judgement, is not sound economic policy.
World Food Security
Food security, a major problem area related to world hunger, is affected not only by the size and management of reserve stocks, but also by the degree to which barriers to trade prevent trade flows in response to market prices. In the food crisis of a few years ago, trade barriers constituted a major factor in causing the adjustment impact of a relatively small shortfall in world food production to be focused on the United States, a few other major exporters, and of course, the food deficit developing countries. We see that individual nations pursuing their own self-interests at times cause many uncertainties in world agriculture. Additionally, of course, agricultural production itself is subject to large variations given the unpredictability of so many of the key variables including weather, disease, pests, and the rate of technological advance. Political and economic realities make the fine tuning of agriculture an unlikely possibility. It should be recognized that excessive year-to-year instability in food grain supplies and prices can wreak havoc with progress toward development goals and solving the world hunger [Page 835] problem. There are policy actions related to reserves and food assistance that can be taken to ease chronic food shortages and severe distributional problems. I must mention here that without the political will of individual governments to recognize the problems and to agree and implement the policies designed to correct them, efforts related to world food security will not succeed.
An Additional Comment
An abundance of valuable studies have identified many pertinent issues and have made recommendations for future studies, policies, and actions. I encourage the Commission to review these studies, (especially the National Academy of Science study on “World Food and Nutrition,” and the report that I was responsible for, “New Directions for U.S. Food Assistance: A Report of the Special Task Force on the Operation of Public Law 480”)4 and focus its efforts on implementing these proposed ideas and solutions to the problems of world hunger and malnutrition.
The Presidential Commission on World Hunger is in a position to give great impetus to the world effort to conquer hunger and malnutrition. It has at its fingertips the resources of a plethora of concerned groups and citizens devoting their energy to this issue. It also has the ears of the administration and the public whose support is vital to the formulation and implementation of effective policies. You have my continued assurance of USDA cooperation with the Commission in its efforts to come to grips with the problem of world hunger.
Thank you for the opportunity to express the Department’s views.
Sincerely,
- Source: Carter Library, RG 220, Presidential Commission on World Hunger, Subject File, 1978–1980, Box 17, USDA. No classification marking. A stamped notation indicates that the Commission received the letter on March 29. An April 5 letter from Vice Chairman Muller to Bergland indicating that Muller would share the letter with Linowitz upon the latter’s return from China is attached but not printed.↩
- Not further identified.↩
- See Document 212.↩
- The Food and Agriculture Act of 1977 directed the Secretary of Agriculture to establish such a task force. The task force’s 128-page final report was jointly released by the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry and the USDA and published by the Government Printing Office in 1978.↩