312. Telegram From the Department of State to Multiple Diplomatic and Consular Posts1
107370. For the Ambassador from Sec Vance and Admin Gilligan. Subject: Ambassador’s Role in Dealing With Pressing Global Problems—Population Growth and Adequate Food Production. Reference: State 128220.2
Summary: You are requested to establish and report on a continuing dialogue with host country leadership regarding the need for the nation to deal more effectively with population/food problems in order to meet basic needs of the poor through self-help measures and to advance their own plans and aspirations for economic development. End summary.
1. The following instructions are based upon the policies and priorities of the Carter administration as enunciated by the Secretary in recent testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee3 and upon Sections 103(A) and 109(A) (10) of the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954, as amended.4 The Secretary stated that the cooperation of Third World is essential in helping resolve such pressing global problems as rapid population growth and inadequate food production. The principal purposes of our assistance programs [Page 1053] are to meet the basic needs of poor people in the developing world and to give them a chance to improve their standard of living by their own efforts. The Act of 1954 requires consideration of the extent to which a recipient country is undertaking self-help measures to increase per capita production, including carrying out voluntary programs to control population growth. This is consistent with and reinforces NSC approved policy concerning the Ambassador’s role in making more effective use of our food assistance in stimulating countries to deal more effectively with their population/food problems.
2. We believe it is necessary to focus host countries’ attention on this issue. We have in mind (A) long term projected worldwide food shortages, based on FAO, USDA and other data, and (B) the Congressional requirement stated in Section 103(A) that our assistance be increasingly concentrated on countries that make effective use of such assistance, including their performance in improving agricultural output and nutrition and reducing population growth.
3. This administration’s emphasis that food and other assistance serve all development interests, to which population is integrally linked, reinforces the need for these instructions.
4. As appropriate in your normal contacts with top leadership of host government, you should discuss need for cooperation of Third World countries to resolve pressing global problems that affect all nations, including rapid population growth and inadequate food production. The principal purposes of our assistance programs are to meet the basic needs of the poor people in the developing world and to give them a chance to improve their standard of living by their own efforts.
5. In your presentation, you should make clear that we are not attempting to establish a condition for U.S. assistance. On other hand, projections of food/production trends suggest that U.S. and other major food-exporting countries (of which there are only five: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and Thailand) as well as EEC will not be able in the long run to meet projected world food demand. As determined by the International Food Policy Research Institute, population in developing countries (excluding People’s Republic of China and other Asian Communist countries) will exceed 2.5 billion by 1985. Of them, 2.2 billion may well be living in food deficit countries, making the present precarious situation much more alarming in the absence of corrective actions. In addition, the logistics of food transport and storage will become an increasingly difficult problem.
6. We suggest you make point that, in a situation in which supplies may simply be inadequate to meet demands, prudence suggests that we jointly cooperate with food-deficit countries to explore ways in which their domestic supply and demand can be brought into balance. Efforts to increase agricultural production are a vital part of such solu[Page 1054]tion. Without control of population growth, however, any solution is temporary or partial.
7. You should adjust your presentation to particular situation in your country including population/family planning policies and programs already being implemented.
8. We would like to have a report from you of your conversations, and we would appreciate any further suggestions you may have to increase the effectiveness of our programs in this area by June 1, 1978.
- Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D780180–0086. Limited Official Use. Drafted by Green and Lee; cleared by Mink, Gilligan, Tarnoff, Blaney, and Tuchman, as well as in draft by Cavanaugh and in substance by Hathaway; approved by Vance. Sent to Kabul, Dacca, La Paz, Santo Domingo, Quito, Cairo, Addis Ababa, Accra, Guatemala City, Conakry, Georgetown, Port au Prince, Tegucigalpa, New Delhi, Jakarta, Kingston, Amman, Seoul, Beruit, Bamako, Rabat, Islamabad, Manila, Lisbon, Dakar, Freetown, Mogadiscio, Colombo, Khartoum, Damascus, Dar es Salaam, Tunis, Kinshasa, Lusaka, and Lima. According to telegram 207555, August 16, the Department repeated telegram 107370 on May 5 to Algiers, Banjul, Bangui, Abidjan, Bissau, Bangkok, Ankara, Asuncion, Bogota, Brasilia, Bridgetown, Cotonou, Bujumbura, Caracas, Gaborone, Lilongwe, Libreville, Lagos, Lome, Kathmandu, Kigali, Managua, Maputo, Maseru, Mexico City, Monrovia, Mbabane, Ndjamena, Niamey, Nairobi, Nouakchott, Ouagadougou, Panama City, Port Louis, Sana, San Jose, San Salvador, Santiago, Taipei, and Yaounde. (National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D780335–0936)↩
- See Document 284.↩
- In his March 2 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee concerning the administration’s FY 1979 foreign assistance program, Vance stated: “The cooperation of Third World countries is essential in helping to resolve pressing global problems that affect all nations: economic instability or stagnation, rapid population growth, adequate food and energy production, environmental deterioration, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, and the spread of narcotics.” The full text of Vance’s remarks is printed in Department of State Bulletin, April 1978, pp. 24–30.↩
- The 1966 Food for Freedom Act (P.L. 89–808; 80 Stat. 1526) amended Public Law 480 to include self-help provisions.↩