270. Paper Prepared in the Department of State1
Food and Agriculture
Events of the past year have heightened international awareness of the precarious food situation faced by some of the poorest countries. Growing food shortages and attendant malnutrition will threaten many of these countries in the 1980s unless actions are taken to enhance their capacity to supply and distribute adequate food.
In Tokyo,2 the Summit countries called for increased emphasis on measures to overcome hunger and malnutrition in the developing countries. Summit participants at Venice should reiterate their concern about the continued existence of hunger in the world and pledge their support for concrete initiatives to realize the objectives of the Tokyo Summit.
Initiatives
LDC Food Storage and Distribution
The problem of providing continuous and adequate nutrition within developing countries is affected more by seasonal and annual variations in national food production than by fluctuations in international food prices. Adequate storage is essential to provide an uninterrupted flow of food to consumers. Storage facilities enable farmers to [Page 902] hold stocks for local marketing and protect perishable crop production inputs such as feed and fertilizer. Storage in isolated rural areas provides a measure of security when local harvests fail. National storage capacity allows countries that rely on the international market to import basic foodstuffs when prices are low.
The types of facilities for which there is a growing need as people in developing countries move out of subsistence farming and begin to rely on purchased food include: village market facilities, financial arrangements for holding stocks, grain drying, cleaning and processing centers, transport systems, central storage and milling facilities, outlets for consumers and port facilities for export or import. The amount of food which developing countries’ food distribution systems will have to carry is projected to increase from 250 million tons in 1978 to roughly 400 million tons by 1990.
Between 1980–85 the World Bank proposes a substantial investment program to assist the poorest developing countries meet their growing food distribution infrastructure requirements. This program will increase by 20–25 million tons the capacity of these governments to assure access to food by the neediest.
The Summit members should endorse the proposed IBRD investment program to enhance the ability of the low-income developing countries to distribute a continuing flow of food to their poorest consumers. To accelerate the rate of investment, the Summit countries should commit their bilateral aid agencies to give priority consideration to specific IBRD requests for co-financing and technical assistance in projects designed to improve the food storage and distribution capacity of low-income countries. The Summit should urge other bilateral and multilateral donors to extend similar co-financing support to this significant investment in LDC food security.
Food Aid
Enhanced national food supply and distribution systems are essential to providing food security for the poorest developing countries, but many of these countries will continue to face rising food import needs beyond their capacity to pay. The Summit countries recognize this problem and have completed the new Food Aid Convention (FAC) to establish a higher floor for cereal food aid commitments. While pledges of 7.5 million tons under the new FAC are significantly higher than the previous Convention, they fall short of the international community’s target of 10 million tons. The Venice Summit should strongly urge new donors, particularly the OPEC countries, to join the new FAC in order to achieve the international goal.
The Summit countries could announce their intention to ensure their ability to meet their food aid commitments under the new FAC by [Page 903] establishing food aid reserves. These reserves would approach the magnitude of their FAC pledges and would insulate minimum food assistance commitments from the commercial market. The food reserves would be released for use in non-commercial markets when international grain market supplies are short and prices are high. The existence of these reserves would guard against the recurrence of situations such as the early 1970s when food aid levels were reduced because of short supply.
Food Production
Given finite land and water resources, significant production increases in the poor, food deficit countries will depend on the application of usable technology by small farmers.
The Summit countries should note that donors have agreed to double the resources of the agricultural research centers supported by the Consultative Group on Agricultural Research (CGIAR). However the transferral of the technology developed by the CGIAR centers to small farmers requires strong national research institutions. These institutions must have the capability to adapt technology to local growing conditions and disseminate it to agricultural producers. The Summit countries should endorse a special meeting of donors of the CGIAR to explore the requirements for enhancing LDC indigenous research institutions.
To assist the organization of food production and consumption efforts, the Summit countries have supported the development of food sector strategies by developing countries. The Summit members should reemphasize their commitment to effective food sector strategies and urge the multilateral development banks to take the lead in providing and organizing external assistance efforts to support the elaboration of food strategies.3
- Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Staff Material, Special Projects—Hazel Denton, Box 56, Food: 5/78–3/80. No classification marking. Drafted by Kolar on March 3; cleared by Dane Smith and in draft by Hart. Kolar initialed for Hart.↩
- Reference is to the 1979 Tokyo G–7 Summit; see footnote 2, Document 257.↩
- Documentation on the Summit is in Foreign Relations, 1977–1980, volume III, Foreign Economic Policy.↩