Using the People's Republic of China as a case study the conference on world hunger and food policy focused on the Agricultural Revolution that has enabled China to feed its nearly 900 million inhabitants. In addition to relating China's farming practices to the problem of world hunger the conference also provided participants with first-hand information on various aspects of China's Rural Life and economy. Harvard professor John King Fairbank former director of the East Asian Research Center and chairman of the Council on East Asian studies open the conference. He provided the audience with an historical look at the real transformation that has taken place in China Society in the world. the Indo-European civilization Atlantic community North America and South America, even India have all interconnected and come from a certain degree of common origin. the Greek influence in India Egypt Behind us all innocence Greece and Rome. All of this gives the outside world international world. Some common background and China is the exception. Had by the little contact than any other part of the world. Got to read sometimes. And this is no joke because it means the Chinese are just enough different. So we can have great misunderstandings. We're all very human. The Chinese are perhaps smarter than we are there certainly at least the Civilized probably more so But we can have misunderstandings. because we do not have certain common assumptions are common background experiences as much as we generally assume between ourselves and people in Europe, for example So let me begin and rather Broadway with. characterization of the ancient Chinese social structure as agrarian bureaucratic in other words a country Not on the sea until later. a country of farming land with villages of farmers eventually unified and ruled by ruling class. I ruined Stratham. a composite kind of ruling class and today not only official Olson soldiers but also the Literati these Scholars clerks managers. landlords Merchants the people that moved around people had access to power the new the people in charge. people that form B Reservoir pool for selecting the bureaucracy that was a a routing stratum about 5% of the country people. the other 95% Were the people in The Villages? And this to stratum system is a fuse word class at 6. So generally vague but this division between the common people and the upper-class Literati scholar official Merchant landlord class. Have come down to the most ancient. And it all makes a contrast. We're the kind of society that developed in the Eastern Mediterranean. Through Greece and Rome in and out of Europe. Taking off from the various European peninsulas and Islands spreading around the world producing us producing. civilization also in Russia is rather broad generalization, but I would say this European centered civilization. You could characterize as seafaring commercial and Military The Agrarian bureaucratic Society in China has a continuity in the same place. Spreading gradually for North China over the rest of the area reaching the Seacoast. accountability not matched by the westward drift of civilization in the West from Greece to Rome to Paris to London to New York or whatever it is, Chicago, San Francisco. Now this character of the Chinese Society goes way back than the other Neolithic. by 5000 BC the recent excavations in the last quarter-century on the Communists have Brought to light a tremendous picture of this Chinese ancient world. before the Iron Age and recorded Vance the early sites are roughly 5,000 BC. Is 1 day fiance has been excavated. You can walk around on walkways and look down on the fifths that form part of the housing. You can see some of the parts that were found are some of the skeletons. So there's been a continuity. 8000 years roughly are 7000 years any May along continuity. With certain characteristics that seem to have been present all the time. For example rice was found quite early in these excavations evidence of rice culture. going way back prehistoric I know what rice planted your cultivate. There's a very high yield per unit of land more a great deal more than we double or so. But it takes a lot of Manpower is irrigated. Of course. So immediately you find the Chinese in a type of farm economy. From Early times with a heavy emphasis on labor input intensive farming rather than extensive. Labor is necessary for irrigation, of course as well as transplanting rice. You find a nice oil industry that goes way back as far as you can tell. whole cultivation even today you see people out with a Big Mac a big hole. Catapres oil you swing it? On the way this more efficient than a spade. But anyway, that does a job. Plow, of course is used. But Johnny's not had as much of a plow culture. They retain some of the whole culture in which the individual goes out cultivates is filled with his hole. Rather than getting in draft animals and plowing. Which is better for extensive motivation. So there again immediately you see. a modern aftereffect of the situation When you got a team of horses pulling a plow. And Western European or American Agriculture and you bring it a tractor. It's not a Quantum Leap. It's just a modification to better horsepower. You just move in the mechanization without too much trouble. But if you're still doing it by hand. Automatic by hand reaping by hand as the wheat crop is still cultivated reaped. Mana shift from Human labor to machines is a very big jump indeed. And the Chinese today face that problem, how can you make that jump? Because it means greater productivity. And yet it memes. A considerable problem what to do with the labor power that is freed if you do bring in machines. In a densely populated country side Dr. Fairbank went on to say that managing a large population has been a constant problem throughout Chinese history China entered the 20th century with 400 million inhabitants and by the 1970s that population had more than doubled Fairbanks said he had seen rural areas in China more densely populated than American suburbs with limited space a problem Chinese philosophy is reflected a greater concern for social order than for the rights of the individual historically Fairbanks said Chinese political systems have always exercised tight social control. I think we can draw one conclusion. Ask for the China before the Revolution. That is that there was tremendous inertia. They've been in the same place with the same teachings doing the same sorts of things. Throughout the day recorded history 3000 years or so. Now this idea of inertia is very different, you know from standing still. That's nonsense. The Chinese kept on developing in various ways. Lots of change. By inertia, I mean momentum tending to continue in the same direction. Established ways that tend to perpetuate themselves. In other words, the problem is it's difficult to shake such a country out of its traditional. norms and up just one example is the ruling class. The Chinese ruling class that I have described before cooking all light mobile and literate people doing various things in the superstructure. You might say marks of terms. That ruling class perpetuated itself in the most sophisticated and clever way. by not keeping anybody out if they could get in that is by crying to recruit Talent by having examination system for the last 15 years, which allowed any smart person who is smart enough to lead a rebellion. To become an official instead. All you had to do is study the classics pass the exams get into official channels make your career. And there's a constant effort to find Bright Farm boys. Give them a chance. Schools were set up a big family would set up a school for anybody to show talent because I needed help on his relatives. The ruling class prerogative therefore became deeply ingrained in habits of life. One of them is that the ruling class figure doesn't use his muscles use the man of ideas. He gives the orders he reads the books. He knows the score. But he doesn't get out and work in the fields. He doesn't use his muscles moving things around as other people do that. Are Confucius said? Some labor with their hands some labor with their heads. Those that labor with their hands feed those that labor with their hands this Detachment of the governing class from manual labor was one of the basic things mouth say tongue and his followers sought to change their first task according to dr. Fairbank was the physical transformation of China into a modern economic and technological Society. The other part is social change social Revolution. how to break down the ruling class tradition how to get that 95% of the people we were living in The Villages better it only so far as they needed to be for. keeping accounts not not indulging in newspaper reading not getting out to into other areas staying at home. Pretty much. How do you get that part of China the great mass of the people in the Modern Life. How do you give them a literacy bring them into the ruling class so to speak so they can get the skills and open up the new day that can come Chinese people. Well, that's the problem of the social Revolution to which mile particularly. Good morning self. We are on welfare Barefoot doctors. local Industries helping a farmer helping a fire and family. In the process there's a terrific job to do. organization remaking the fields Building up material and as well as reorganizing socially changing ideas. I want a cap to deal with all those aspects except on the side of food supply because that's what we're getting to in this conference. Many things were done in the early days of the Revolution the 50s. Taking me small strips of Farmland Des quatre scattered about with a farmer moving back and forth among them wasting his time walking. Putting them in the big fields run by brigades and teams more efficient. China today is a landscape with big feels like hours. Instead of these little Parcels bits and pieces of a medieval times that they used to have. And then leveling many of these fields. Of course, it always been great terrorist builders. Any Hillside would be made into Terraces because you can irrigate. We haven't even begun to do with our land here what the Chinese would have done long ago. You'd have Terraces all over the place and the landlord be more level therefore and irrigation be much easier. There be no a Roshe run off many problems. I'm sure it would be solved. All this kind of thing building a ponds damming up the streams getting more water supply digging Wells bringing in power, of course to Pump from well saving all that man labor. all this kind of agronomic technique It's fairly well known to us. the question is how does the result come out Can the Chinese feed themselves? Depends on this differ pretty much as to whether you're an optimist or pessimist. They have done a great deal of innovative work and double-cropping triple cropping. And interplanting growing two crops in one field same time. Course one implication of that is you have to have harvesting by hand usually but they do that. Anyway, the wheat crop is harvested by hand still. Reason I mentioned the people there to do at the machines or not. All of this bring you in fertilizer course new plants imported. all of this isn't in a context of limited resources diminishing returns and despite the West will in the world. You can't get around the fact that the amount of land in China has a limit. the number of people is not quite so limited. Now the record has been pretty good. in the. Since the Takeover in spite of all the difficulties they've had they come out with something like 4% a year increase of crop. And if you assume that they've had something like 2% a year of increase of people that kept the head. But of course you have to keep ahead in order to break even. And as the population is built out the Food Supplies kept pace you can say that. They have the benefit when they came in of being able to take over the Surplus. Eddie formerly gone today ruling class 2 Waste wood uses one or theirs and whatever it might be. Estimate to that have been made there just pull together as best one can. But some people think at least 20% of the crop in the old days or even 30% constituted a surplus beyond what was needed to feed the population? And the Surplus was used in the old days for variety of ostentatious and other administrative and corrupt purposes. Got the ruling class going made a few people Rich. Although China has not been a country famous for rich people. What is the Chinese Communist were able to get control of the Surplus and have used it to build up the country? That's why they've got the extra that they need make the investment and Industry as well as in remaking the countryside. But that doesn't get around the fact that as they go along. I have made many one-time improvements one time economies. Otherwise, they're done lots of things that they can do only once you have a a damn sight for instance and You build a damn you get your water supply, but you can't do that again. That's been done. And if that's the best damn time in the Country Way. You're not too well-off. So then you got into question of soils and arable acreage and how how much can you increase that? And their Valiant efforts you see pictures of people on the sides of mountains almost on cliffs carving out a niche. So it was Shelf. On which they can bring some dirt and grow some plants to increase production. very hard work most spectacular these things then you see it. The Dodge Viper gate is one of the demonstration sites and Chauncey province. Is the underground tunnel? So take off flood water. Here they had a place where the flood water came in the summer. Tremendous erosive effect just washing out the fields in a gully. Take me to write out when it called bird. Skip a Year's work gone down the drain. Well, I took a look at this and they decided it open up that field and dump it on either side of a big trough down the center. And then being stonemasons from way back if people in Chauncey went to the hills and they carved out. cubic feet of rock big trucks hand-cut from the cliff and they brought them in and Made of Stone tunnel. You walk good for half a mile in one of these demonstration sites. That tunnel is there because the field is put back over it. And there are entrance openings for the flood waters. Which one they come go into the tunnel and rush out below no harm to anybody. When I'm Dancin achievement and yet it's a sad one if you consider the amount of Labor that goes into it. That's no way to improve your living standard. It's a way to survive. Productivity in other words is the real problem for the Chinese people food production is increasing at a rate of 4% per year compared with a 2% increase in population Fairbanks have the Chinese know they must increase that ratio to avoid food shortages one way to increase production is to adopt even more modern farming techniques one member of the audience wanted to know if the Chinese weren't already endangering their social system by adopting too much Western technology top of the world in technology, you know back 1080 their way ahead of Europe. Things like paper and printing books and long before the Europeans ever got to them. Does a proud tradition they come up against the West which now has Superior technology as of 1900 or so? And what you going to do about Chinese band use? Well, they took the position they would maintain their values but that use Western things for tools just to you know, gunboats and railroads and so on as necessary devices to pursue their proper ends. I thought that's a losing game because once you begin to get in the railroad you get things to go with it and the automobile the same. I want to pray that they won't be an automobile civilization. I don't think they will because you don't have that many automobiles inside. We are an automobile civilization and we suffer from it crime comes from it everything else. Let me leave that to one side the battle over Eastern values and Western tools was also fought in Japan in much the same way. Now you have an echo of it and some of my house thinking. He doesn't want to go for the materialism of the West that goes with the machine. He wants to retain certain lady virtues there. A lot of people feeling that way in China to the difference now is however that the Slate has been wiped a little more clean so that you don't just start Reviving Confucius the way they're trying to do in Taiwan you you really have to embark on your own adventure new values or at least Express them in the new way. The emancipation of women is part of this new look, The idea of egalitarian is among people instead of having the privilege of the ruling class is part of the f word distinctly my list and yet you see today the Revival of the of the bureaucracy as a necessary thing for management of such a big country. So they're stuck right in the middle of it. You can't get rid of the old evils in the old values overnight. You can work on them. But as Mama thought he saw you on the six days when he started the cultural revolution your aequitas and reappears. A slogan now is that you find the bushwahzee within the party? This is what the gang of four were saying? Why would translate that out of there gobbledygook is saying that you find a backsliders within the party who instead of wanting to serve the people are out to serve themselves human nature at work. And the struggle goes on. So there's no real answer to the question, but it's worth looking at because they have their struggle at we can see from outside. It's not unlike certain struggles. We had when asked what we might borrow from the Chinese Fairbank warned of the difficulty in adapting any of China's predominantly rural systems into our own highly organized Society, but in light of our growing energy problem Fairbank does believe that there lies within China of marvelous ambiguity many of their Agricultural and Industrial practices once considered backward May soon be the way of the future for instance. He compare the decentralized food production in China with our own method of growing vegetables in a centralized location and then transporting them great distances. And they're trying to avoid the great Transportation problem that we have where you get your California and and Florida. Fruit on the table in New England or various things from other parts of the world all circulating because we transport so much. It's a very high part of our economy. Packaging advertising the whole bit Chinese are trying to avoid it because they produce locally for local consumption. They have an idea what my representative local self-sufficiency make your own bricks to build your own houses. I make your own cement. And make your own cast iron for your own equipment. And I make your own machines. Within a small area of a hundred thousand people wear trailer transport is just by wagon and carry. or you can move things around with no use of the overworked Rail lines or petrol and trucks It's a self-sufficiency idea and they're pursuing it one can only hope they can stay with it. I suppose Economist will tell you that the large-scale are such that they can't hold out but if perhaps it was large scale economies of mass production need to be examined again, because they need a certain type of life and they bring with them certain difficulties. transportation tie-ups Booty Yash. Is it saying Paris? Tied up so you can move in traffic sometimes and then if you blow a fuse. You're on the dark life is ended practically until the fuse comes is replaced. And we're we're in a much more precarious situation than they are. and it may well be that they will lack the resources to reach a high level of mechanized civilization such as we have within the foreseeable future it just too many people and they don't have the But they're making a virtue of that and we may well. Find some example are it's worth following many many people in a in a rather Moonstruck fashion considered now is in the world future. I think this is exaggerating but There were studying because if you got to an energy crisis, which would torpedo this country? average car is trying to tell us that we're running on borrowed time The Chinese way is the alternative undoubtedly. Use what you got locally and make it make it work talk to John King Fairbank of Harvard University whose remarks open the conference on world hunger and the Agricultural Revolution in China held recently at Augustana College in Sioux Falls the problem of avoiding Urban bias in the distribution of and prices and the distribution of services is a very difficult problem virtually everywhere in the world. The urban political interest win. And for China to continue to have a rural bias seems like it's going against the laws of nature. That's dr. Benedict status of the national studies at Cornell University who told the conference on world hunger and the Agricultural Revolution in China, the China can feed itself because it has done a number of things not typical of a real Society. One thing the Chinese have limited population growth by encouraging the postponement of marriage and the reduction of family-sized. They have also adopted the number of modern farming methods to increase production China now has the third largest chemical fertilizer plant in the world and there's an increasing amount of farm mechanization. But while this is meta displacement of human labor in most countries stay thus said the use of machines on Chinese Farms is carefully designed to increase production, but not to replace manual labor altogether. referring to a film scene prior to his address which Illustrated this labor-intensive way of farming stavis contended that this system flourishes because the government devised political system that favors the world economy government policy ensures that the bulk of the population including Factory workers remains in rural areas and that the chief economic benefits of food production remain there as well in the general policy has been to favor the rural sector and not the urban sector Food prices in a broad sense of instable or going up the prices of urban manufactured goods have been going down and the food has largely stayed in the rural areas government procurement for urban areas. As far as I can tell has been going down. And rather than procure more food for an expanding Urban population. The policy has been to require Urban use to move to the countryside. This is a very controversial policy a lot of the urban youths who are required to go to the countryside or not. Happy about it. And I suspect that in some cases the farmers in the countryside aren't so happy about having all these Urban kids coming down who really don't know which end of the of a hoe to pick up. That's very difficult policy. But you know, one of the Alternatives would be to increase procurement rates. Which would require a bigger bureaucracy would require many more problems and probably more problems than the policy that they've chosen. There is also some fairly substantial purchasing of grain in the international market largely for the state procurement system to feed urban populations. I think this is a matter of some debate among China specialist. My interpretation. Is that the food purchases that China makes and I think this year it's up to about 10 million tons. I think reflect not overall food production versus consumption requirements, but rather reflect a judgment that they want to leave food produced in the countryside to leave it in the countryside rather than to buy it and bring it into the cities that it's easier for both logistical and political reasons to buy food in Canada or Australia to feed to the people in Shanghai or Tennyson. Camp II distributional question, which I think ultimately is the most important factor of all in analyzing China's food policies is Food Distribution within the village. Before the Revolution and there were tremendous or substantial differences of classes within the village. You would have a few people owning much of the land. renting out land to tenants Substantial part of the population owning its land and farming it not renting in or out you have some tenants you would have some landless labourers. When I said at the beginning of my talk that during famines and North China 60% of the population was seriously affected that also means that 40% was not seriously affected. and some of that 40% when when some people were selling their houses and land and daughters other people were buying Disaster in the past would be disastrous for some people for most of the people but for some people natural disaster was a time to really consolidate your Holdings expand your land ownership bring in a few more girls into your Harem. I'm very useful opportunity. The Innocents the Cornerstone of the Chinese Revolution was land reform. What's a substantial was taking land away from this rural Elite and distributing it to other people? Known fact that you landed Elite did not have that much land and when their land was taken away and given to other people it did not come out equal. There were still substantial differences. and then during the mid-1950s the land that people did on was pulled into Collective Farms. Based on the work team that Felix green described a group of perhaps 20 or 30 families. That within this group of 20 or 30 families. Now, everyone has equal access to the land. Everyone has the same claim to food. A different Villages work out the details in different ways. I think green described the situation in which everybody got exactly the same amount of food and this does happen in some places in other places people get 70% of the amount of food, they will need automatically and then the remaining 30% would be based on how hard they work. There's lots of different detailed ways of doing it but fundamentally everyone in the village has the same claim to food. It means that if there's bad weather and a drought and a food production Falls by 20% basically, everybody's food consumption goes down by 20% It is not mean that 20% of the people starve. And 80% of the people are Untouched by the drought. And I think probably this factor of equalizing access to essentially productive assets. At the Village level is the most important factor of all in China's handling of food questions. And quite obviously, this is not a technical question. This is a fundamental political question. involving the structure of state power and then China Revolution was needed to re-establish to change these relationships in the village and the relationship between the village and the city to assure that the distribution of food would be fairly egalitarian concerning world, hunger. Gustavus warned that much of the external a developing countries received is simply being used to prop up inadequate economic system be questioned how practical or moral it was to support government's who can advise a system of feeding their own people. Robert flow of the citizens group bread for the world agree that we need to re-examine the type of external Aid being given by such agencies as the United Nations food and agriculture organization or our own agency for International Development, but he still believes that the industrialized nations have an obligation to eliminate world hunger after a three-year study the National Academy of Sciences submitted a comprehensive report on world hunger to President Carter last June the academy reported while we may be living in a world of mass starvation by the year 2000. It is also possible to eliminate the worst aspects of widespread hunger and malnutrition within just one generation depends on the political wheel of the rich Nations and the outline the suggestions made by the academy concerning International Food policy first one. Is very carefully worded statement increasing the supply of the right kinds of food where it is needed. This is very very important because 90% of the food eaten in the world is consumed in the country where it is produced and only 10% accounts for trade. And so therefore it is in central at we work on production in those countries and we'll talk about that in a minute. The second reason that this is very important because it according to many of the studies which I decided earlier the deficits in the third world countries or could range from an optimistic 55 million tons to 200 million tons by 1985 and most studies come down on the on the higher side. If it does get that high of 200 million times that is a scenario which will mean probably a lot of starvation in the world because the transfer would be too large physically in many respects and too much financially and they were just have to be restriction of consumption if those deficits occur. What can the US do to help achieve the task of an unrecorded again increasing the supply the right kinds of food where it is needed. First one that comes to mind is obvious and something that we have been doing. Although not very well and that is us food Aid and although that's not the best approach nor will it solve the hunger problem? It is something that's going to be with us for a while. We're going to have to continue to supplement other countries with us food. As you know, we export over 50% of all the food that is exported and we are the major producer in the world. They needed the third world countries is estimated by the IFA hours between 14 and 20 million tonnes Us in 1976 gave 1.3 million times. And that's down from about 9 million times in 1972. So as you can see, I ate levels have dropped off significantly. And I think we need to reassess that. But along with increasing the amount of food Aid that has to be some very important reforms and I usfoods a policy. I'm sure many of you know that in the past. I food that has been used as a political weapon and has been used as a surplus disposal mechanism manager to just getting rid of the Grain in this country to help increase the price in this country and has has been mentioned undercut it did the farmers in other countries because it was not used in in a rational fashion are in a fair manner but was merely dumped on the markets of the third world countries. So we have to be sure that I food that is no longer used for military purposes and in 1975 the Congress amended PL 480 to say that 75% of us food at now has to go to countries where most seriously affected by the energy in food problem. I recently this summer it was amended to raise the income level from $300 per capita to $540. But still we have some assurance that most of all right, we'll go where it is needed in this is very important and we have to be sure that that continues Not even to 25% is not used to to uphold military dictatorships or to pursue our own selfish policy interest. The second thing about it is that we have to be sure that it's it's used as a developmental tool other than just seeing it as a as a charity program are as a pipeline to feed the people. We have to see that our food Aid is integrated and efforts to increase production in other countries as programs as food for work by the UN FAO world food programme, very good examples and church agencies have been doing this for a long time. And that's using food to pay people to do water control and build dams do dikes through a number of things supporting them with food so that when the project is over they can begin to increase their own production and feed themselves. We have to be sure that I food Aid goes to the people that really need it as I mentioned in a lot of that means child programs. It means feeding pregnant women. It means making sure the tickets to the people who are the poorest in this country is not an easy task. And therefore we need a strategy for accomplishing that we have really no, comprehensive strategy and us food a I'm more important than food a as I've already mentioned is increasing production in other countries and as has been alluded to United States can't assume that we know it all and that we can just go in there and do it for them or we can provide very important support in many significant ways particularly financially Avenue National Academy of Sciences report said that we need to Triple the present budget for a ID which is about $39 and increase our allocations for Agricultural Development assistance. Currently, the United States is 14th among the 17 industrialized nations in percent of GNP given for development assistance and up until the late 60s. We were doing almost nothing and it was a noted policy that us should not do very much to increase production of the countries because we were afraid that they would compete with our I needs but as is apparent they need is so great that we have to increase production in those countries. While I was in Washington this summer, I was shocked to find an atmosphere in the mood in. My many Congressmen at is anti foreign aid and anti development assistance every year. There's been a resolution by one of the more conservative members of Congress to Archive across the board cut a 5% in US development assistance, and it's never passed this summer it passed and it just kind of a big Anna helping other countries. I think there was a lot of Hope in terms of reform for usaid policies and a lot of that. Hope is in the new director Mister Gilligan and that he's made some very promising sounds and some good speeches and it remains to be seen if he'll be able to carry through on that but it is unless very hopeful one of the things mr. Gilligan said is this the general assumption is one that us is playing a very active role. If not a dominant role in this area the area of agricultural development and it turns out that we are doing nothing very much at all. And that's a very telling statement. USA has steadily declined as a percent of our GNP and in dollar terms. It hasn't grown at all and many years despite inflation us growth and the growing need Anda brinson's are our us governmental priorities right now. I think a little unbalanced total economic development in recent years been about 2 billion dollars annually for non-military purposes. When you talk about military, we're talking about over a hundred billion dollars from military in taxes 1973 taxpayer-paid about 750 375 dollars for taxes. For Military Support purposes and each of us paid $6 for economic development assistance. I think we all need to really take a look at that and say is that the direction in which we want to see our government headed and I spending priorities. Another hopeful thing. Is that a recent report on in the Christian Science monitor announce the Carter plans a new assault on world hunger and I I hope and and I am hopeful that he is serious about that. He has stated that he wants to substantially increase the amount of funding that the US gives to self-help and self-reliant projects in other countries, and he is even open to the possibility of working more through multilateral agencies rather than just US Agencies. Gilligan stated about usaid that the program today is over aged over ranked overpaid and over here. So he wants to see some substantial reforms in raid policies and I'm not an expert in development. But I do know that western-style development is not the appropriate approach and many of the third world countries. I do know that we need a creative adaptation of intermittent intermediate Technologies. We need to allow them access to credit and we need to support what's already going on in the country's knows a lot of very good things going on, but I just need some help financially. And with some Innovative Technologies, maybe with some high-yielding varieties. That was a variety of different things. And again, I think we can learn a lot from China and their developmental approach. And again, I'm not an expert in that but I think it's important that as this conference is trying to do we try to understand what they have done and how we can incorporate that in our approaches. Yeah, one of the main stresses of the National Academy of Science to report is that the US needs to increase funding for research how we have very limited budget for research and Agricultural Development. Un FAO said that there are hundreds of millions of farmers all over the world with little land and let us know how whose Hearts Desire is to achieve a better life for their families and that there's an immense potential for increasing production many countries. Do we need to support that effort? The third thing under the the idea of improving the right kinds of food where it is needed is looking at the consumption and production patterns in the world food economy. And this is something that's kind of a New Concept in some respects at least is becoming more popularized the book food first by Frances Moore lappe and Joseph Collins addresses this problem and that comes up with some pretty substantial evidence. Notice that the the report said the right kinds of food for many countries where there is widespread malnutrition, they are producing a lot of food for export and not for their own people for instance in Central America and the Caribbean islands 70% of the children of malnourished but 50% of their land and that's the prime agricultural land is used to grow crops for export they are subsidizing in feeding us and mr. Borgstrom who is an expert in food policy said that there's a protein drain that we're taking out very high quality protein from third world countries 4 million * 43 million tons of grain style protein that we are giving to those country. So we have to take a look at that other examples. During the time of the famine exports of cotton and peanuts actually increased during those years. We have to look at who owns that land and who's perpetrating that kind of a production pattern who's supporting that end and if we as a nation are involved in that, I think we need to take a look at that and and re-evaluate that policy and again, perhaps we can learn some lessons from China and helping countries to become more self-reliant and arrival culture and I I do believe that it's a myth that every country can can be totally South Carolina. I believe in agricultural trade, but I think we have to take a look at our people suffering because we are eating a very very high level and protein. Okay, the second thing that the NSA came up with. Was improving the stability of Food Supplies in the world and this entails an international system of national grain reserves something the world food conference. It called for a 1974 and up until last spring no government had acted on in the US had resisted efforts to see any kind of a Reserve System and that's where bread for the world. And that's where I spent a lot of my efforts this summer is working to get Congress to adapt National Grand Reserve System, and I'm very pleased to say that we were successful and saying that come about The Grand Reserve is needed for about four basic reasons. The first one is to ensure that there are adequate supplies of food. The concept is if you have Services which we have now, you take some of you store them so that there are crop failures in the future. We have some grain and we don't have a situation in 74 were many countries went without food because there simply wasn't enough to go around the second reason is to ensure that there's a stability in the price of agricultural markets and this goes both ways supposed to ensure that farmers have a decent price for their commodity and that the market is not bothering me all them as it is today and also to ensure that the price of rain does not Skyrocket so much countries are priced out of the market in 1974 when the price of rain quadrupled India and other countries are pouring all of their finances Justin feeding the people and they couldn't invest in development. They could invest in our own economies and we have to take a look at that syndrome other thing is to ensure that the United States can carry on a rational foreign trade policy. Someone said that a promising no more grain and vagos is like promising no more bad weather without a good National Grand Reserve. And finally a Grand Reserve by has been called by the International Food policy Research Institute as a major development tool that if farmers in the third world countries can be sure that the US isn't going to just dumped on them or that they will have a stable supply for their product. They will take more risks and they will they will invest more in their own agricultural production and also they will be able to eat so they can produce he proposed an event for the world offered in a spring which people in USDA and and other experts said we would never see happen. Was it 30 million time Grand Reserve held by Farmers on the farm to the government loan programs. We also propose to 10 million time government-held Reserve which should be used solely in the case of a severe famine and for emergency relief the Congress passed the first legislative Reserve in the history of this country and then Carter turned around in his position and announced a 30 million ton grain reserves held on the farm by farmers and a 6 million * mergency reserve and Robert has a called bread for the world office and said congratulations. We gave you what you want. We hope you're happy and he kind of said it's real good a teeth, but none the less it wasn't significant accomplishment and as many of you remembers now because there was citizens in this country who took the time to understand the issue and to let the elected officials now that they wanted to see this government do something about food. Charity in the world and I'm a Virgo and will be negotiating with the world food Council to see that other nations take part in this Grand Reserve. Third thing which is a new thing for us for a group of scientists to come up with and it was very encouraging was that they said we need to reduce poverty in the world. I did not limit themselves Simply to Impress an output send the technical aspects, but they said that even if we double the food supply in the in the next few years, it will still be massive famine unless the wealth in the world is more equitably distributed and that seems like an obvious thing but none the less. It has not appeared very many studies and it was significant. This study came up with that. We all know that there is a growing gap between the rich Nations and the poor Nations and well and those gaps huge gaps in countries from South between the rich and the poor. and I will leave it to the China Express 2 to talk about how we can learn from them. I happen to be a strong supporter of democracy and participation. But I do think there are some lessons that we can learn terms of the distribution of wealth Max Milner who is Henry Kissinger's Aid to the world food conference said that the economic rules of the game in the world at stacked against the third world countries that have to be reluctant and reordered. So we need to relook at trade policies regarding the 3rd World countries and they come up with a list of Demands. And I don't have time to go into the mall, but it's called the new international economic order. And we as a nation need to take that seriously. Some of the things are asking for is more Equity between the price of raw materials which they sell to us and the price of manufactured goods which we sell to them for instance in the Dominican Republic worker will be paid a dollar for a ton of sugar but she will harvest and he will pay $0.55 per pound of processed sugar. I think we need to take a look at that kind of a pattern which seems to be increasing an extension writing more and more control by the host countries are the global corporate activities and more control of their own resources. And I think this is something that we as individuals would want for our own country to control around natural resources in the international monetary systems access to credit and freedom from the deathtrap many of the countries are just pouring all of their capital and them in the paying the interest on the debt in the past and we have to take a look at that. First thing is commodity agreements to stabilize the prices. As you know, many of the third world countries are dependent on fraps one crap. And if the price of that one crap goes way up and then way down. And what happened way down two governments have a very hard time staying in power when the price goes way down. So the needs to be some stability and some commitment on our part to see that there is some stability in prices. And we need to improve the access of for developing countries to our markets. We have in many feet in some cases double duty and double tariffs on third-world Goods vs. European goods and we need to ask you was at fair and what can be done at the same time. It didn't show that we protect our own people and our own labor, but it's all tariffs were cut by 1985 according to the overseas Development Council and I'm not advocating is policy. I frankly and not an expert enough to say we should cut all tariffs. But if that were done the export earnings of the third world World what increased by 24 billion dollars and I don't know how they arrived at that estimate, but certainly they could work their way out of poverty and therefore out of hunger if we had him or just economic system. The fourth thing at the National Academy of Sciences came up with was decreasing population growth rates. And I think we heard of a good explanation of how China decrease of population growth rates. And I think that can be translated to other countries if there is security and if there is a lower infant mortality rate and if there are more Affair relationship between men and women in the country with red stripe, Berry, no said this there's a powerful social Force which paradoxically both reduces the death rate and thereby stimulates population growth and also lead people voluntarily to restrict the protection of children and thereby reduces population growth that Force simply stated is the quality of life a high standard of living a sense of well-being and if Security in the future, I'm very hopeful. Then came out of Congress in 1976 called the right to food resolution and in this was called by the New York Times and Wall Street Journal and other periodicals is the most comprehensive and most important statement of intent by the US Congress regarding us food policy and I want to read the whole thing. But let me just read two parts of it. First of all be it resolved at the House of Representatives the Senate recurring that it is the sense of Congress that number one the United States Ria from the right of every person in this country and throughout the world to food and a nutritionally adequate diet number to the need to combat hunger. So be a fundamental point of reference in the formulation and implementation of United States policy in all areas, which band hunger including International Trade monetary Arrangements in foreign assistance. Then also mentioned that in the United States we should seek to improve food assistance programs to all who are need to ensure that the eligible recipients have an opportunity to receive an adequate diet. We need to focus on and domestic hunger. Before thing was that the United States should increase substantially its assistance for self-help development among the world's poorest people, especially in country seriously affected by hunger and malnutrition with particular emphasis on increasing food production and encouraging improve food distribution and more Equitable patterns of economic growth. And in order for this assistance to be effective. It should be coordinated with expanded efforts by International organizations donor Nations and recipient countries to provide a nutritionally adequate diet for all. and It was very significant to that came out of Congress. Now if we can put out US policy in line with the rhetoric of this resolution, I think we can do a lot at dinner last night. Someone was saying you're one of the key questions is the Chinese people can maintain the motivation to continue on in a process and I would say that equally important as if the United States people can muster the motivation can increase their awareness of the food problem in their concern and then try and translate that into US public policy that makes a difference Robert flow a representative of the citizens Action Group bread for the world. He spoke at a conference on world, hunger and agricultural policy held at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota recently. Earlier in the program you heard. Dr. Benedict's Davis of Cornell University. And dr. John King Fairbank of Harvard University. This program was produced in the studios of Minnesota Public Radio station. Krsw in Worthington by Vicky sturgeon. I'm Kim Hudson, and this is Minnesota Public Radio listener-supported Radio in the Upper Midwest.