First Report of Credentials Committee
Premier rapport de la Commission de verification des pouvoirs
Primer informe del Comité de Credenciales
CHAIRMAN: I wish to call upon the Chairman of the Credentials Committee to come and give the first report of the Credentials Committee.
H. QABAZARD (Chairman, Credentials Committee): The Credentials Committee, of which I have the honour to be the Chairman, at its first meeting on 12 November, 1977, examined the credentials of the delega-tions of Member Nations to the Nineteenth Session of the FAO Conference.
The Committee found 116 credentials valid, and the countries are shown in the list attached to the report. 28 countries are have so far not presented credentials. In addition, the Committee considered the credentials of the permanent Observer of the Holy See which we have found valid.
Any other credentials which are received as well as the credentials of the representatives of the Specialized Agencies of the United Nations and all observers from the other intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations will be examined by the Committee at the subsequent meeting on which I shall report in due course.
CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman of the Credentials Committee. I understand that this report has already been distributed and the number of the document is C 77/LIM/20. This report was reviewed by the General Committee only this morning.
I will now ask the Secretary-General to read the report of thé General Committee.
Second report of the General Committee
Deuxième rapport duBureau
Segundo Informe del Comité General
SECRETARY-GENERAL: The General Committee recommends that the Conference adopt the First Report of the Credentials Committee.
CHAIRMAN: Are there any comments on this section? If there are none, I declare the section which has just been read adopted.
Adopted
Adopte
Aprobado
SECRETARY-GENERAL: The General Committee recommends that the vice-chairmanships of the three Commissions" be distribued as follows:
Commission 1-4 Vice-Chairmen from Australia, Iraq, Morocco and Nepal;
Commission II - 4 Vice-Chairmen from Canada, Iran, Kenya and Thailand;
Commission III - 4 Vice-Chairmen from Philippines, Syria, United Kingdom and Venezuela.
The Committee recommends that the Conference request the delegations of the countries listed above to inform the Chairman of the Conference at the earliest opportunity of the name of the member of their Delegation which they have designated to serve as Vice-Chairman of a Commission.
The Committee stressed that its proposal of four Vice-Chairmen in each Commission should not, however, be considered as a precedent.
CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Secretary-General. Are there any comments on this section? If there are none, I declare the section which has just been read adopted.
Adopted
Adopté
Aprobado
SECRETARY-GENERAL: (Admission of New Member Nations) Further to its earlier report on this matter in Document C 77/LIM/12 which has been distributed this morning, the Committee recommends admission of Namibia represented by the United Nations Council for Namibia.
The Committee further recommends that the voting on the admission of new Members be started immediately after the item is taken up by the Conference, and that any statements delegations wish to make should take place after the voting, with not more than one delegation speaking on behalf to each region to welcome in the same short statement all the new Members, or those which it wishes particulary to welcome.
CHAIRMAN: Are there any comments on this section? If there are none, I declare the section which has just been read adopted.
Adopted
Adopté
Aprobado
SECRETARY-GENERAL: (Assessments of New Member Nations) As indicated in the reports of the Seventy-First and Seventy-Second Council Sessions of June and November 1977, the amounts due in accordance with the provisions of Article XVIII-3 of the Constitution, Rule XIX-3 of the General Rules of the Organization and Financial Regulation 5. 8, would be as follows:
For Angola, Comoros, Djibouti, Mozambique, Namibia, Sao Tomé and Principe, and Seychelles, $4, 080 each as contribution for the last quarter of 1977, and $1, 300 each as advance to the Working Capital Fund.
For the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the contribution for the last quarter of 1977 would be $12, 240 and the advance to the Working Capital Fund $3, 900.
The Committee recommends the above for final decision by the Conference.
CHAIRMAN: Are there any comments on this section? If there are none, I declare the section which has just been read adopted,
Adopted
Adopté
Aprobado
SECRETARY-GENERAL: (Voting Rights) The Committee noted that the arrears of the Central African Empire, Congo, Democratic Kampuchea, Dominican Republic, Mauritania and Paraguay are such that they have no vote in the Conference, as provided for in Article III. 4 of the Constitution. I must add here there was another country which has paid its arrears to the extent that its voting is possible, just before the opening of this meeting.
That Article also provided that the Conference may permit a Member to vote provided it is satisfed that the failure to pay is due to conditions beyond the control of the Member Nations
With regard to Congo and Mauritania, the Committee, having been informed of the steps taken and to be taken to regularize their positions, recommends that the Conference restore their right to vote.
As the delegations of the other Members concerned had not arrived by the time of the meeting of the General Committee, it requested the Director-General to make contact with their representatives as soon as possible after their arrival in order to review their position with theim and report thereon to the General Committee so that it may make further recommendations to the Conference.
CHAIRMAN: Are there any comments on this section? If there are none, I declare the section which has just been read adopted.
Adopted
Adopte
Aprobado
CHAIRMAN: The report of the General Committee that the Secretary-General has just read and which has been adopted will be distributed in the course of the day, and the number of the document will be C 77/LIM/22.
PRESENTATION OF B. R. SEN AWARDS FOR 1976 AND 1977
REMISE DES PRIX B. R. SEN POUR 1976 ET 1977
ENTREGA DE LOS PREMIOS B. R. SEN PARA 1976 Y 1977
CHAIRMAN: Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen, the presentation of the B. R. Sen Awards this Nineteenth Session of the Conference is unique in that it is the first occasion when the man you honour is present with us on the podium. (Applause). He needs no introduction, least of all to this distinguished gathering. You know his brilliant career as a senior civil servant and diplomat with this Government. You know his inspiring leadership as Director-General of this Organization from 1956 to 1967. Ten years ago at the Fourteenth Session of the Conference it was decided to create a new permanent FAO activity associated with the name of Dr. Sen and devoted to the goal he served so well.
It is fit I should remind you of the Conference Resolution unanimously approved at this time. This Resolution recognized the eminent services of Dr. Sen to this Organization in raising it to the standard it now enjoys, with exceptional energy and devotion to duty and great competence in the development questions. It considered he had made a unique contribution in creating among the leaders of the world an understanding of the problems of hunger and malnutrition, and the imperative need to accelerate agriculture and general developments.
The Resolution spoke of his magnificent achievement that would be lastingly remembered, and expressed the hope that it would be able to continue to serve the ideas for which the FAO stood throughout the world.
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DIRECTOR-GENERAL: Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Delegates - I can personally testify to the fact that Dr. Sen has lost none of his exceptional energy, none of his great competence in development questions.
I have frequently called upon him during these past two years for his advice and counsel.
I can therefore also testify that he continues to serve, with profound wisdom and selfless dedication, the ideals for which FAO stands.
Mr. Chairman, before you present the B. R. Sen award for 1976/77 on behalf of the Organization, I feel sure that you and the Distinguished Delegates would wish to acknowledge the presence with us today of the man whose achievement these annual awards commemorate.
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CHAIRMAN: Thank you Mr. Director-General. As I said before, the B. R. Sen Awards were established in pursuance of a resolution of the Fourteenth Session of the Conference. The award is an annual one, and two are presented at each Conference Session. Any official of FAO and the World Food Programme who has served in a field post and programmes undertaken by either Organization is eligible providing he or she has at least three years' service in the field. The recipients are staff members who have made an outstanding contribution to the performance of the country or countries to which they were assigned. This contribution should be clearly identifiable, and it may take the form of technical innovations in agriculture, fisheries or forestry, administration, discoveries of new resources as a result of research survey or other investigations, establishment of training or other research institutions, or performance of many of the other parts essential to FAO or World Food Programme personnel.
For 1976 the winner of the B. R. Sen Award is Mr. Talât Eren from Turkey.
The citation for Mr. Talât Eren is that his service as an FAO Field Officer has made an outstanding contribution to the advancement of the country to which he was assigned. His work in Thailand in assisting in the settlement of nomadic peoples, in promoting better land use practices on critical watersheds and increasing forestry activity and in intensifying agriculture reflects both credit and honour on this Organization and on its partners in the field. In recognition of exceptional dedication and achievement this acknowledgment is gratefully presented. I would now ask Mr. Talât Eren to come to the podium, please.
T. EREN' Mr. Chairman, Mr. Director-General, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen: As an officer of this great Organization, as a forester by profession, and as a Turkish citizen, I am deeply moved by the honour which you have conferred upon me through the B. R. Sen Award. By its reason and magnitude the joy, the pride, satisfaction and honour of this Award cuts across a larger spectrum than my humble personality.
In my several years of national and seventeen years of international services I have firmly believed that honesty, devotion, cooperation and appreciation are the most indispensable strategic elements of any important developmental task. It was with this conviction that I enthusiastically and of my own will accepted a field assignment in Thailand. I wanted to find out how forestry could happily be married to other activities, agriculture in particular, within the context of rural development. It seemed that this was as difficult as eliminating the quarrels between the modern law and pride since the rivalry was almost equally action and deep seated. However, I found very fertile ground, kind people, an interesting and beautiful country and cooperative and receptive administration. Moreover, I had a team of well qualified experts and Thai counterpats. I was encouraged by the cooperation that emerged from various agencies. These were further stimulated by His Majesty the King's interest in our activities. Less criticism, more guidance, firm stands on principle and an honest and sincere interest in rural poor have been our tools in the project implementation. " We respected every profession and listened to every advice from everyone. My Headquarters' experience and my colleagues' invaluable backstopping, especially the support of the UNDP office in Bangkok and regional offices support, has been very instrumental in our activities.
We are far from solving all the problems but through this joint effort some of the difficulties have been overcome and the stage has been set for further developments. Today's ceremony is therefore not only the recognition of our joint effort but also an endorsement of our approach, an approach which should be further refined if greater success in serving the rural poor, in Thailand in particular, and indeed those in every part of the world, is to be achieved. This is both an urgent and the most noble task that faces all of us.
It is an honour and a pleasure, for me especially to know that Dr. Sen, in whose name, as you know, this Award has been established is at this ceremony. I have endeavoured to dedicate myself to his principles ever since I joined the Organization as a junior officer during his term. Before concluding I would like to express my sincere thanks and my appreciation to my colleagues, both Thai and international, whose cooperation and contribution earned this great honour which I would like to share with them as well.
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CHAIRMAN: I thank Mr. Talât Eren. Before continuing there is a request and I invite the head of the delegation of Thailand to make a brief statement.
S. KOMALABHUTI (Thailand): I wish to express very briefly the appreciation of the Royal Thai Government for the B. R. Sen Award for 1976 which has just been conferred on Mr. Talât Eren.
It is, therefore, with great pleasure that I would like to convey to him the congratulations of my Government on the signal honour bestowed on him in recognition of his outstanding and far-reaching contribution to the national planning and utilization of forest land in Thailand.
Mr. Talât Eren's work in Thailand has been indeed of the most extreme importance, not only on a national level but, on an international level also.
Thailand feels privileged to have had the services of Mr. Talât Eren as Project Manager of the UNDP/FAO projet ''Mae Sa Integrated Watershed and Forest Land Use'' in Thailand for about four years.
In many developing countries, forest destruction is a serious problem especially in watershed areas. But through this tripartite project(FAO/UNDP/Royal Thai Government) and thanks to the leadership of Mr. Talât Eren together with his local Thai counterparts, he has found a way to cope with the problem. He introduced and demonstrated rational land use practices and better cropping systems. He assisted the Thai Government in improving the physical and social infrastructure of the area. His major accom plishmentwas to improve the welfare of the rural poor. He was also instrumental in the creation of a new interdisciplinary Watershed Management Division of the Forestry Department and in introducing the concept of multiple-use management to the area, and in guiding this Division in an integrated and people-oriented approach to land use. In addition, this project has promoted labour-intensive activities aimed at creating employment opportunities for the hill-tribe farmers as an extra source of cash income.
Once again, Mr. Chairman, let me express the appreciation of the Thai Government, and of my own, for the Award which has just been conferred.
CHAIRMAN: I thank the delegate of Thailand.
The winner of the 1977 B. R. Sen Award is Miss Jean Ritchie from the United Kingdom. The citation for Miss Ritchie is that her service as an FAO Field Officer has made an outstanding contribution to the advancement of the countries to which she was assigned. Her work in many countries of Africa in the teaching of home economics, in developing inaugual training courses for women and the training of trainers and in the planning and direction of nutrition, population and rural family programmes reflects both credit and honour on this Organization and on its partners in the field. In recognition of exceptional dedication and achievement this acknowledgment is gratefully presented. I would ask Miss Ritchie to come to the podium, please.
MISS J. RITCHIE: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Director-General, Dr. Sen, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am indeed deeply honoured to be given this Award. I particularly appreciate it because I had the privilege of serving under Dr. Sen when he was Director-General here in FAO.
Dr. Sen inspired the Freedom-From'-Hunger Campaign, he intensified FAO's awareness of problems which are arising in this world from rapidly increasing population and the difficulties of balancing food and people. Dr. Sen is not only concerned with the planning and policy aspects of food and nutrition, but he was, and I know still is, concerned with the real human suffering and starvation which hits nations, also the individual families, the mothers and the people.
Our present Director-General, Dr. Saouma, has reaffirmed on many occasions his awareness of the critical nature of the dilemna of balancing food and people and has directed the attention of FAO to this with great vigour. He has focussed attention on the needs of rural women who in fact are in many parts of the world the food producers who will have to be helped if they are in turn going to help to solve the problem of food shortage and malnutrition.
The women of this world - and I am talking about the rural women particularly - not only make a very large economic contribution, for which they are very often not recognized, but they play a very large part in influencing nutritional standards through their efforts in marketing, in food processing, and in storing food. They are the people who are responsible for distributing food within the family and they bear and nurture the children, giving them milk from their breast as well as having the responsibility of home and family care.
Most of the women in rural areas have very little access to the resources needed to improve their farms or to the education and extension needed to improve their skills in farming, in homemaking and in child development. They are very often overburdened with constant child-bearing and they are too busy and too tired to be able to do much to improve the welfare of themselves, their children and their families. Hunger, in spite of a generation of effort, is still with us. FAO estimated in 1975 that 400 000 000 people still did not have enough food for body maintenance, let alone for a lot of hard work; and that 200 000 000 children under five years old were suffering from malnutrition, about half of these from protein-calory malnutrition which is common in the developing world in all the Continents represented here.
We can therefore not afford to delay in a more vigorous attack against hunger, malnutrition and the too rapid growth of population which tends to nullify the advances made by development.
I should like again to express my thanks to FAO for the Award and I should like to say that I feel it should be shared among my colleagues who have faithfully helped me from FAO in Rome and who have worked with me in the field, not only FAO but the other United Nations agencies with which I have been associated as a team member; and not least, the workers in the different countries who have been my colleagues and friends when we were carrying out activities in Africa and in Asia. I am retiring myself in about six weeks but I hope I shall still have the privilege of making some small - however small - contribution to development and to the welfare of women and children in the developing world and assisting rural families to achieve a better quality of life even after I retire.
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CHAIRMAN: I thank Miss Ritchie and I now call on the Honourable Delegate of Guinea, the Chairman of the Africa. Group, to make his brief statement.
J. S. CAMARA (President du Groupe africain): M. le Président, M. le Directeur général, c'est un grand honneur pour moi et pour mon pays qui assume la présidence des représentants permanents africains à Rome auprès de cette Organisation, de prendre la parole pour exprimer notre profonde gratitude à Mademoiselle J. Ritchie.
Nul plus qu'elle ne pouvait être récipiendaire de cette décoration du Prix B. R. Sen, en cette année où la FAO et le Conseil mondial de l'alimentation mettent l'accent sur le problème de la nutrition. Sa contribution dans un secteur aussi important que celui de la nutrition, lorsque l'on sait que près de 500 millions de personnes dans le tiers monde souffrent de la malnutrition, ne pouvait être qu'un hommage rendu à une grande dame qui a consacré plus de trente ans de son existence au problème de la malnutrition dans le monde.
Tous les pays en développement, et les quelque vingt pays africains où elle a servi, lui sont profondément reconnaissants pour son travail, pour sa contribution.
Nous sommes donc très honorés et très fiers de prendre la parole devant cette auguste assemblée pour lui témoigner notre profonde gratitude.
Elle vient de nous dire que très bientôt elle va prendre sa retraite; mais nous pensons que même dans sa retraite, elle continuera à apporter sa part au travail gigantesque de cette Organisation et de tous les pays intéressés à résoudre ce grave problème.
Enfin, pour conclure, au nom de toute l'Afrique, nous voulons lui dire merci et encore une fois grand merci.
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CHAIRMAN: I thank the Honourable Delegate from Guinea, Chairman of the Africa Group. Before inviting Dr. Sen to take the floor, may I invite Mr. Barnala, Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation of India, to make a brief statement.
S. S. BARNALA (India): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity you have given to the Indian delegation to say a few words on this occasion. The Awards we have just witnessed are a token of the tribute this world Organization is paying to the significant contribution Mr. B. R. Sen made to the development and progress of this Organization during his Directorship.
Yesterday the Indians in Rome met in a gathering to celebrate the great Indian festival of Divali. If anyone of you had the opportunity of being in India during Divali, the Festival of Lights, you would have seen myriads of small lamps, every lamp representing the hopes and prayers for prosperity in years to come. This reminded me of the years when Mr. Sen was Director-General of FAO, when he lit so many lamps which lighted our path and helped to fulfill the ideals for which this Organization stands. Some of these, like the World Food Programme, conceived and executed during Mr. Sen's Director ship, are true symbols of his vision and foresight. It is not my intention to enumerate Dr. Sen's achievements which are well known, but I wish to touch on one aspect of his life which illuminated his entire career while working in India or with the world Organization. It was his iron self-discipline and complete dedication and total involvement in whatever he undertook. Even today, a decade after his retirement, he and his gracious wife are with us here, which shows his love for this Organization and his continuing dedication to the causes which he served.
The Awards FAO has established in his name to reward the best field workers who have made a noteworthy contribution to agriculture research and development are indeed in line with the best attributes of Mr. Sen. Without dedication and sincere application to duty no field worker can show worthwhile results to merit recognition. The Award is a tribute to all the workers of FAO who are in the forefront of our struggle against hunger and malnutrition. I wish to congratulate the winners of the B. R. Sen Award, which for the first time includes a lady, on their splendid achievement. I also wish to congratulate the Director-General, Mr. Saouma, for inviting Mr. and Mrs. Sen to be present on this occasion and to witness with satisfaction this event.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, the Indian delegation wishes to join you and all those present here in offering a salute of love and affection to Mr. B. R. Sen, a noble son of India and a great citizen of the world.
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CHAIRMAN: I thank the Honourable Delegate of India. I now have the honour to give the floor to Dr. Sen.
Dr. B. R. SEN: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Director-General, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen: It is a great honour for me to be invited this morning to participate in your proceedings. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and you, Mr. Director-General, for your very kind words of welcome. I had almost a homecoming feeling after this long absence. To the two recipients of the Award I extend my warmest felicitations. It is men and women like them who carry the message of FAO to the field, to the humblest of village homes. It is they who give a true meaning to the work of this Organization.
We are also glad to know that in this great Hall of Nations, women are not - to use an expression by Orwell - more equal than others, but fully equal with men.
Mr. Chairman and Distinguished Delegates, I belong to a generation that is passing away. It is my generation which saw the horrors of the war, which also saw the emergence of a humanism promising a new world order. The United Nations was created to save succeeding generations from the scurge of war. FAO was brought into existence about the same time to ensure humanity's freedom from hunger.
Three decades have since passed. The world today is certainly different, almost unrecognizable from what it was then. Empires have dissolved and nations have sprung into new life everywhere in the world. There is a stirring among the masses never known before, like a giant awakening after a long sleep.
But, Mr. Chairman and Distinguished Delegates, are we any nearer to solving the basic problems of human life, the problem of world hunger in particular? All evidence points to the contrary, compounded as all these problems have been by unprecedented population growth.
Yet there are signs which are encouraging: the cry for a New International Economic Order which was received with dismay and unbelief by the developed countries, that cry is now being taken more seriously.
The cry for social justice for the underprivileged, the poor, the hungry is slowly but surely finding recognition everywhere.
FAO was the first expression of post-war idealism. In recent years new institutions have been created overlapping FAO's functions. But we have to remember - by ''we'' I mean not only we in FAO but the entire United Nations system - we have to remember that the FAO still remains the primary international instrument for achieving the great objectives set out in its charter.
Already we see a new spirit in FAO -to try and reach out to the rural masses, to help realize the potential which is the greatest asset of the developing countries. Until now the rural masses have remained almost untouched by modern technology and with a few exceptions have had little benefit from planned investment. The poverty in the countryside has led to mass migrations to the cities with grave consequences. This new spirit in FAO coincides with the ratification last year of the United Nations Covenant under the Human Rights Declaration recognizing the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger. In this new endeavour to reach out to the masses you have a Director-General at the helm of the Organization dedicated and determined, of high integrity, intelligence and grasp of realities.
Mr. Chairman, and distinguished delegates, to that great day when the world will be a happier place for all to live in we look forward with hope. May you succeed where we have failed. May you achieve what has proved so elusive to our generation.
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TENTH MCDOUGALL MEMORIAL LECTURE
DIXIEME CONFERENCE MCDOUGALL
DECIMA DISERTACION EN MEMORIA DE MCDOUGALL
CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Dr. Sen. We will now proceed to the next item on our Agenda, the Tenth Biennial McDougall Memorial Lecture. May I now introduce Ambassador Andrew Young, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations.
A. YOUNG: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Director-General and Dr. Sen.
It is an honour for me to be invited to give this tenth lecture commemorating Frank L. McDougall of Australia who did so much to create this wonderful agricultural arm of the United Nations system. While I was not privileged to know him, I am told that inspiration, imagination, and determination best characterize Frank McDougall. We are often told that this planet is woefully short of persons of the McDougall mould but this view is not acceptable to me. Many others, in all parts of the world, have the visions and aspirations of this noble Australian and I hope and pray they also have his determination.
You Ministers, the Secretariat, representatives of other Agencies, can best remember Frank McDougall by stimulating thought on new approaches among your colleagues, by refusing to accept anything but the very best, and by ensuring that whatever we do or propose in this critical field of agriculture has, at its very base, the fullest consideration of the dignity of man and the rights given him by our creator.
America has its roots deep in agriculture. Our greatness, our failures, our joys and our agonies derive in large measure from these roots. Thomas Jefferson was a democrat, a humanist and a farmer. His role in the birth of our country and in the Declaration of Human Rights derives from his agrarian background and philosophy. American farmers played a vital role in expanding our frontiers westward. Their determination, their courage and their individualism rise from their closeness to and love for the land. America's commitment to human rights and individual liberty owes very much to these agricultural pioners.
Our economic development in the past and our prosperity today are based in large part on our agricultural abundance. While only a tiny fraction of our labour force remains in agriculture much of our industrial production capability and our export potential would not exist without agriculture.
We are very fortunate that the President of the United States is a farmer. His farm was not run by -a corporation, it was a family farm. His hands and his feet know well the red dirt and the clay of the state of Georgia. Bob Bergland, our Secretary of Agriculture, is also a farmer, not an agronomist, not a bureaucrat or an agro-business executive, but a farmer elected by other farmers to the Congress of the United States and then appointed Secretary of Agriculture by the President. Much of the hope that I have for this Organization and our relationship to it and the challenge that we have accepted to end world hunger is due to the faith that I have in the farm leadership of our nation.
Out background and our philosophy, our leaders and our people, make the United States a strong supporter of agricultural development. We believe that international cooperation is necessary if the world's problems in food, nutrition and agriculture are ever to be resolved.
But we know full well also that great mistakes can be made in agriculture. Coming from the southern part of the United States, I am painfully aware that the organization of agriculture can be an instrument of repression and human bondage. The colonial system of agriculture in our south was based on cheap slave labour. Even after the Civil War many elements of this system remained. Hatred of the land continues to contribute to the enslavement of my people, for having divorced themselves from the land, they now find themselves in new enslavement in urban America.
Industrialization transformed the south, its labour, its economic structure and its social organization. Industrialization attracted the poor farmers - black and white -off the land where they could barely scratch a living. Industrialization generated a demand for skilled and educated labour. The blacks of our south could no longer be held down to fuel the profits of absentee landlords. They had to become educated, trained, and proud in order to participate in the industrialization process.
The experience of the southern United States has taught us a lesson. Agricultural development can only succeed in the long run if the rights to land and the social organization that support agriculture production and distribution are fair and just.
We must reorient our thinking towards the land and to the needs of those who labour on the land. Farmers need motivation to do their job. The work must pay. The life must: be bearable. If people are to find living in the rural areas attractive, then leaders need to adopt policies that make those areas inviting, and see to it that the total rural environment satisfies. The public can push for this. Many Americans believe now that they can best influence national policy by controlling their neighborhood community. Others are returning to the land, in search of a better way to live.
Our experience has taught us also that many of our urban problems have rural origins; for example, where agriculture is neglected by public officials to the point that people abandon the land and go to the cities to seek a better life. Yet in the cities, life is not necessarily better.
Food is and always has been top-level politics in my country and, I suspect, it has been and is in yours. How many times political leaders would have done better to choose a full granary than a full arsenal, to prevent violence and disruption.
Food and hunger are now very much a part of the international debate between what we call the north and the south. In the past, monarchs, presidents, prime ministers, and generals have risen or fallen with the fluctuations of staple food prices. Hunger knows no homeland; it violates borders, impels
migrations, alienates otherwise loyal citizens. Hunger is said to be a problem of the poor, but the hungry poor, in their anger and frustration, can pull down the rich and powerful.
Food is a right. Our own position as leaders depend on guaranteeing this right. Many of us began our careers with slim waistlines and good intentions. Now we are part of a privileged group, circling the groaning tables of international diplomacy. It is therefore incumbent on us to stay aware: there is hunger and mulnutrition, in my own country, in other lands; it can come upon us swiftly.
I grew up in the tradition of civil rights struggles to affirm popular rights. In the U. S. civil rights movement, we used to ask, "What good is it to have the right to eat at an integrated lunch counter if you can't pay the bill?, , We knew we had to desegregate public accommodations; we also knew we had to confront the economic barriers to universal human rights.
What more basic right could there be than the right to food? It underpins all other human rights, for • without food there is no humanity, either of body or spirit. Hunger not only saps vitality, it violates human dignity.
Though many of us live with abundance, we are all aware how pervasive hunger is. In the African Sahel even now rainfall and crops are uncertain and the situation grows more ominous daily. In the United States, too, there have been serious droughts in the west and south. Elsewhere, in the midst of natural or political upheavals, farmers do not plant. Although most of the world's granaries are overflowing today, they may not be tomorrow. Even in the midst of plenty, drought and famine are still with us. Experts tell us that a reasonable estimate of the number who are undernourished in our world is five hundred millions. We know that many governments are hard pressed to raise the money to pay for badly needed food imports.
Today, in a period of relative plenty, it is essential to work towards guarantees of the right to food for the world's population. It is time to take stock and plan against future famines.
Billions have gone into food relief in recent years; but relief ends only today's hunger; it does nothing for the long term. The ultimate goal has to be total food security. We have the obligation now to plan preventive measures in both marketing and production that may obviate the emergency sacks of grain and help people devise ways to feed themselves.
Hunger is primarily a problem of the poor and the powerless. The rich somehow manage to get enough to eat. Food is not the only problem of the nomads in the Sahel, the miseries of those sleeping in the overcrowded streets of Calcutta, or of the hungry in Haiti. Poverty is a complex of deprivations, only one of which is hunger. But of all the misfortunes that afflict this planet, surely relief of hunger is the most essential.
Our ancestors were far more at the mercy of natural threats to food production - drought, pestilence, floods and disease -than we need be. We possess many techniques for solving the problems of world, hunger and malnutrion. Today hunger need not, be inevitable. The world can produce enough food for all, within, our lifetime, thanks to the advances throughout the ages including the plough. Production, however, is only one side of the coin. The other is distribution. Who will produce more and for whose benefit? Why is food distributed so unevenly?
In attacking the problem of hunger and poverty, we need to pay special attention to the rural poor. One way to help the rural poor is to increase their self-sufficiency. There are many rural areas which cannot pay for imported food and whose people live on marginal lands in fragile environments. For a variety of reasons they are unable to grow enough food, draw enough water and plant enough ground cover to subsist. My Chinese friends say, "It is good to give fish to a hungry man. It is better still to help him fish for himself. "
Self-reliance, however, is only part of the answer. In food, the world is interdependent. Our common task - to organize this interdependence fairly-is unfinished. Many people feel helpless and angry •before the fluctuations of world food prices, the insufficiencies in the present grain reserve pattern, the vagaries of marketing, the difficulties in establishing grain reserves, the scarcity of capital for investment. Even minimal global emergency food reserves fall short of what many consider sufficient. The poor nations expect a genuine reinforced effort from the richer nations.
We must renew domestic efforts to implement the agrarian reforms necessary to feed the poor. Hard political choices have to be made. Let us terminate land tenure policies which result in unfair distribution of the fruits of the land and inefficient production; credit facilities that benefit rich farmers and ignore the small and medium-sized entrepreneurs; pricing policies which deny low-income
farmers a fair return on their production or place a disproportionate tax burden on them; distribution policies which impede the free flow of vital foodstuffs from areas of abundance to areas of need, even in the midst of famine; and population policies that fail to ensure couples the right to determine the number and spacing of births.
Obviously each nation should ensure that it is conscientiously following policies designed to help the poor achieve their right to food. However, the community of nations collectively has a responsibility to cooperate to improve the international climate for efficient production and distribution and elimination of hunger and poverty:
By a substantial and effective increase in resources transfer devoted to the problems of hunger and malnutrition:
By an accelerated transfer of technology and knowhow with careful adaptation to local circumstances:
By an improvement in the international market for food, reducing the cycle of scarcity and plenty, of high prices that take food from hungry mouths and low prices that ruin farms financially and destroy their access to credit.
The richer nations have done far less than they might to help their poorer neighbors through resource transfers and technological assistance. Governments are supported by constituencies within their own borders, who often neither know of nor care about problems in other countries. Taxes are always too high, and there is little sentiment for using them on projects whose benefits are at best far away and indirect, Conservation is fine for others, but not if it demands a change in one's own style and patterns of life. Protectionism, subsidization of inefficient production and unfair commercial practices still abound. And yet if poverty in general and the maldistribution of the world's wealth are to be corrected we need the courage and wisdom to accept changes, not because they are easy to accomplish but because we recognize their innate justice.
The food producing and exporting countries have a special obligation-to help organize a more effective and stable market for food, to use their food abundance wisely for the international good, to contribute to an effective international system of food reserves and to disseminate their production knowledge to enhance food security for all.
In spite of all that is done by the agricultural exporting nations, there will still be no true independence and freedom without a well-developed program of rural development. Our task is not just to feed hungry people but to involve them in productive capacities. The problem of urban migration, unemployment, ana income distribution that plagué all of the nations of the world in some form are only exaggerated by food dependence. Rural development can be a key to both food production and the stabilization of our nations in new development patterns.
In this decade, the development plans of many countries received a rude set-back from the rising oil prices. Many nations experienced hunger. We have given much thought to oil and not enough to agriculture. Treated well, the land is an inexhaustible resource, not a depletable one like oil. Renewing itself every growing season, the land can protect us from the worst terrors of want. It is up to us, in the international community of nations, to behave responsibly, using our resources well and effectively for the good of all.
Rome is called the eternal city. It is also the city of our sustenance. The Food and Agriculture Organization here in Rome has been a vital force for international cooperation in agriculture since 1945. It is deserving of our support and close attention. It is our organization and we have the responsibility to make it an increasingly effective force in world agriculture. The FAO/ONU World Food Programme is an increasingly important channel for food aid. The concept of food for work, pioneered by the WFP, can be expanded into one increasingly developmental tool. Yet if food production is to be a development machine, contributing to an agriculture-based rural development strategy, the entire community of international development agencies must be involved.
The patterns of roads and infrastructure in most of the developing world are part of the colonial pattern of exploitation. They were not designed to help the nationals develop. They are still contributing to the enslavement of the people. If this pattern is to be reversed, then feeder roads developed by UNDP, credit availability structured through IFAD and the World Bank, fertilizer, irrigation and rural industrial development must somehow be done in concert. Bureaucratic coordination can also be the death of development. We can get so concerned about protecting our bureaucratic vested interests that we never get to the people with the resources they so desperately need. There is a delicate balance between coordination and creative competition that must be found. I think the principal reason I was invited to give this lecture is that the Director-General and I have a certain affinity for this problem, that we both are willing to be controversial if it in some way will shake loose the bureaucratic lethargy and get the job done. Every country in the world is fighting and losing the battle of bureaucracy. Whether East, West, North or South, we find that we are our own worst enemies.
One of the mechanisms which has emerged as a creative challenge to the problems of bureaucracy is the utilization of the volunteer. As a concept to help the agriculturally less developed nations of the world, I like the idea of national, regional, and perhaps even international volunteers for food production. The idea would be to integrate the very best of the volunteer service concept with the best ideas for promoting efficient, low-cost agricultural productivity and technical cooperation among developing countries. Technical efficiency is as important as voluntary service and might best be built in by an emphasis on both human and technical progress.
Volunteers have many strengths: they are dedicated; they are not a new bureaucracy, for they are temporary, but to be effective, they must be well trained.
For technical services, we have within the UN system itself considerable available back-up. Moreover, since self-reliance, not exports, is the goal, village improvement needs to be kept low-cost.
Such a corps of volunteers could serve where the mechanized techniques of expensive farms, are ruled out. Even if funds were available, mechanized techniques have their limits, particularly in the fragile environments where many of the people most vulnerable to famine live. There, even small shifts in weather or land use can bring disaster. Massive mechanized intervention can even result in great wastes, like the infamous peanut or groundnut scheme in Tanzania, before independence.
Such a national, regional and international food corps would promote small improvements that reduce problems of excessive or wasteful land use, poor crops or stock varieties, erosion, grass burning, inadequate water supply and deforestation. One part might specialize in the needs of rural women, who account for at least half of the subsistence food production of the developing world. Volunteers must have knowledge not only of different agricultural processes, but also of different societies. Village agricultural development requires great sensitivity to local social relations.
Farming takes time and persistence. As outside volunteers withdraw, and the nationals take over, it is important to maintain technical back-up services for some years. Too many village developments have faded away for lack of technical support during a reasonable transition period. Food volunteers would take on tasks in the context of a national plan, through a process which might include dialogue with capital donors. At the outset if the international, regional and national volunteers train together, this could reinforce the national agricultural, educational, reseach, and extension services. As many of the outside volunteers as possible should come from the developing countries.
Volunteers would be expected to put their hand to the plough, the pump, the wheel. However, their main charge is stimulating villagers to greater production and self-sufficency to be a part of a self-perpetuating chain of practical agricultural education.
This idea of food volunteers is conceived as a complement to the existing international development structures. Since any organizational planning must be done collectively, I suggest the concept only in broad outlines; it must of course fit into the existing international system and benefit from existing national services.
In our struggle against hunger and malnutrition, a food corps concept is only a step. Who would not volunteer in such a cause? Of course, this cannot answer all our problems. There is no simple single answer to the problem of food security. Working to develop this concept can refresh our dialogue, give us strength to solve conflicts among ourselves, and renew our dedication to alleviating global hunger.
This year I had the good fortune to travel to several African and Caribbean countries. In Jamaica, I met people who said, "Why should a poor country, with good land, import food?" In Guyana I was impressed by the cooperative villages I visited, and by the towns where authorities gave people land and encouraged farming.
Perhaps the most impressive lessons were those from Costa Rica and Ivory Coast. Both are countries with extremely limited mineral resources, yet their development of the land has been the key to all of their industrial development and social progress.
There are still many problems. However food self-sufficiency by these countries is the basis not only for an export potential and earnings of foreign exchange, but also of a new social development and political freedom. Thus, even in bad times, townsmen who have no jobs can still subsist from their own harvests.
Our backgrounds differ in many ways and we have many different viewpoints. As Julius Nyerere has said, ''The nations must have the courage to talk about their differences, and must hold fast to the principles of our common humanity".
The basic human need is for a filled bread basket, a bowl of rice, or millet, and for the balancing nutrients of greens, protein, fruit and milk. Our larger objective is to create a global food system, integrated enough to meet everyone's needs for changing conditions of agriculture, and yet producing an absolute increase in the total amount of food so that there is enough to go around. Never before in history have these goals been so attainable and so necessary for the survival of us all. Food security is not just bread for the hungry, it is some guarantee of peaca for the world. The patterns of agricultural and economic cooperation which can produce a sugar agreement or evolve a Common Fund also contribute to an interdependence and mutual understanding which limits the potential for starvation, military destruction and civil strife. There is no task which requires more urgency than ''the beating of swords into plough shares and spears into pruning hooks''. Cruise missiles and backfire bombers dont't offer nearly the national security that comes from a full harvest and well-fed, well-educated and productive farmers. All of our cities are exploding with anxiety and discontent while rural opportunity for peace and prosperity beckons.
We can fulfill these goals in our time. American students have begun to focus on an end to world hunger by 1985. It was the creative power of youth in our country which successfully challenged racism and discrimination in the 60s and ended our involvement in Viet Nam in the 70s. Surely the youth of the world with our help can end world hunger in the 80s.
If that dream can be realized, it is not too visionary to believe that true food security for the peoples and nations of this planet can be a reality by the end of this century.
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CHAIRMAN: I thank Ambassador Young for the delivery of the Memorial Lecture. May I call on the delegate for Australia, Mr. Ives, to take the floor.
W. IVES (Australia): Mr. Chairman, your Excellency Mr. Andrew Young, Mr. Director-General, His Excellency the Australian Ambassador to Italy and Mrs. Ryan, Distinguished Delegates and Ladies and Gentlemen; 1, like Dr. Sen, happen to belong to a generation which is rapidly passing, and perhaps I should point out that for 44 out of the 45 years that Ambassador Young has been alive I have been one of those bureaucrats who I suppose from time to time have impeded the progress which all of us would like to see achieved.
I say this, not to disagree with what Ambassador Young has said, but to indicate what may be a certain bias which you must allow for in my remarks. It has fallen to my lot now on four occasions at four successive FAO Conferences to congratulate the very distinguished speakers who have delivered the McDougall oration. This has been through the sheer accident of my happening to be an Australian and I - not just I but we all, as Australians - are enormously proud of what McDougall did. We are therefore delighted that his name is perpetuated by this oration which is given at each FAO Conference,
I am deeply impressed by Ambassador Young's record, and am particularly impressed by his obvious concern for the future of all mankind. I emphasize "all mankind" and the fact that Ambassador Young is concerned not only about those groups who may happen to share his own particular point of view. I do feel there is a very important point to be taken from that, that in this Conference, representing as it does countries with an enormous range of problems and diversity of view points, we are reminded by Ambassador Young that each and every view point is entitled to full consideration.
Dr. Young is a humanitarian. So indeed was Mr. McDougall, and in that they have a great deal in common. McDougall was a very interesting man. He was a tough character, he had experienced a great deal of personal diversity, he had suffered many hardships, but the measure of the man was that these did not make him bitter, they did not make him angry, they did not cause him to be deflected from trying to achieve something positive and useful. He was very quiet but he was very persistent, and in the end I believe you would agree with me when I. say he was one of the world's effective people simply because he was prepared to keep on working towards the end which he and others had identified as being in the interests of all mankind.
I was particularly pleased that Dr. Young mentioned, as Dr. Butz did two years ago, that more food for consumers and would-be consumers must begin by providing reasonable conditions for farms, reasonable conditions for farmers whether they own big farms or small farms - and we must all realise farmers are not in a position to be philanthropists. but if in fact we wish them to increase their output then we must provide conditions which make it possible for them to do so.
It so happens that at the present time Ambassador Young's country and mine are both plainly examples of the fact that farmers could produce more food if they were given better prices. This is the very point McDougall considers in that famous phrase of his: "The marriage of food and agriculture will be achieved only when we look at both sides of the problem, " For example, at this very moment both the United States and Australia, together with many other countries, have signed an International Sugar Agreement. The principal reason for this is over-production of sugar, over-production which has caused prices to fall to levels which have become unprofitable for producers in every country of the world, irrespective of the nature of that country.
The result is that in Australia we will accept quite heavy reductions of production. In the United States the Government has already had to raise the price to the consumer by about 3 cents a pound to make it possible for their own farmers to live, to make a bare subsistence, not to make a great deal of money. The same is true of grains, where at the present time there are discussions about an international grains agreement, and the whole problem is that it seems likely that once again there will be surpluses which could lead to ruination of farmers in many producing countries. As I said earlier, farmers are not philanthropists, they have to live, like everybody else in this world.
This is not the moment to stress problems which are going to come before the Conference in succeeding days, but I think that one other general comment would be appropriate. It is undoubtedly a measure of the enormous importance of the responsibilities of FAO that every Conference indicates that the commitments that people want the Organization to accept, the tasks that most of us agree should be undertaken, are always far in excess of the budget that we give to our Director-General to do these things. Each Conference has seen this situation. This Conference, I am certain, will be no exception. So we have the difficult decision of deciding what is to come first, where our priorities lie.
Distinguished delegates, this is no different from the problem that you and I have back in our own countries. I am not a Minister, I am only a Permanent Secretary, but as a humble technician it is my task every year to try to make inadequate resources cope with the multiplicity of jobs that have to be done. Our problem here is no different, except that I would suggest that the resources are smaller, the tasks are greater. I think that our Director-General and his senior colleagues are to be congratulated upon the analytical approach that they have adopted.
Now I want to indulge in one piece of special pleading. I, like many of you, are enormously impressed by the potential of the programme that the Director-General has proposed concerning the reduction, and where possible the avoidance, of post-harvest losses of food. The task is one that has received a lot of attention, which has been the subject of a lot of detailed technical study, and clearly is one which deserves very high priority, in fact I would almost dare to say top priority.
If I may indulge in still further special pleading may I suggest that without excluding other areas of urgent storage problems, the problems of storing rice under the conditions that usually exist in South East Asia undoubtedly are matters which warrant our special attention. In my judgment - I emphasize in my judgment only - very early effective action to reduce the losses which now lead to unnecessary lack of food and malnutrition are necessary.
Thank you for this opportunity to express the appreciation of Australia of yet another McDougall oration. May I say that Australia will be anxious to offer all the technical cooperation that it can in the discussion and in the action that may take place at this Conference.
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CHAIRMAN: We will now proceed to the next item on our agenda. The Conference will now vote on the admission as Member Nations of the Organization of the following eight countries: Angola, Comoros, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Djibouti, Mozambique, Namibia, Sâo Tome and Principe and Seychelles. I should recall that this vote is governed by Article II - 2 of the FAO Constitution which reads:
"The Conference may by a two-thirds majority of the votes cast, provided that a majority of the Member Nations of the Organization is present, decide to admit as an additional Member of the Organization any nation which has submitted an application for membership and a declaration made in a formal instrument that it will accept the obligations of the Constitution as in force at the time of admission. ''
I will now call on the Secretariat to give details of the voting procedures.
LE SECRETAIRE GENERAL: Vous trouverez tous les renseignements concernant les scrutins dans les deux documents déjà distribués sous les cotes C 77/INF 7 et C 77/INF 2. Les sections 5 & 6 du document C 77/INF 2 contiennent respectivement les dispositions relatives au vote, les procédures de vote, et le document C 77/INF 7 donne les détails sur les procédures régissant l'admission de nouveaux Etats Membres.
Aux fins du scrutin, les délégués recevront 8 bulletins de vote, un pour chacune des demandes d'admission à la qualité de membre. Ces bulletins portent 3 cases marquées "OUI", "NON", ''ABSTENTION''. Pour voter, les délégués feront une croix dans la case correspondant à leur choix.
Aux termes de l'article XII. 4 c) du Règlement général de l'Organisation, les bulletins blancs seront comptés comme abstentions.
Aux termes de l'alinéa 4 d) du même article, les bulletins de vote ne doivent porter aucune indication et aucun signe autres que ceux par lesquels s'exprime le suffrage.
CHAIRMAN: In accordance with Article II - 2 of the FAO Constitution and the provision of Rule XII of the General Rules of the Organization, the quorum required for this election is a majority of the Member Nations of the Organization. This means that at least sixty-eight (68) Member Nations must be represented and present in the hall at this time. I have requested the officers in charge of the election to carry out a count and I am told that at this moment 123 delegations of Member Nations are present in this hall. We may therefore proceed to voting. May I remind you that in accordance with paragraph 14 of Rule XII of the General Rules of the Organization once voting has commenced no delegate or representative may interrupt the voting except to raise a point of order in connexion with the voting. In accordance with paragraph 9 (c) of Rule XII of the General. Rules of the Organization the Chairman of the Conference appoints two tellers from among the delegates or representatives, or their alternates. I would therefore request the delegates of Barbados and New Zeland to serve as tellers for this election. Would these two delegates please proceed to the voting area? I will now ask the Assistant Secretary to call all delegations in alphabetical order to the voting area.
Vote
Vote
Votación
CHAIRMAN: Distinguished delegates, voting has now been completed. The tellers with the assistance of the Officer-in-Charge of the election will now count the ballot papers, and the results of the flection will be announced at the beginning of this afternoon's meeting. The new Member Nations admitted to the Organization will then formally take their places in this hall.
The meeting rose at 12. 00 hours
La séance est levée à 12 h 00
Se levanta la sesión a las 12. 00 horas
