CHAIRMAN: I call the Tenth Plenary Meeting to order. We will continue the item General Discussion and I now give the floor to Mr. Ives, Secretary, Department for Primary Industry, Australia.
W. IVES (Australia): Mr. Chairman, like all the other delegations which have the opportunity so far, I should like to congratulate you very sincerely upon your election to this high and distinguished office. I should also like to offer my personal thanks and congratulations for the very effective way in which you have been discharging what are heavy and sometimes quite awkward responsibilities. Secondly, I should like to offer congratulations to the Director-General, Dr. Saouma, on the completion of the first two years of his period of office and on the successful discharge for two years of his heavy responsibilities. Those of us who have what we ourselves may regard as the quite onerous responsibilities of worrying about agriculture in our own countries can understand, I think, the difficulties and the responsibilities which the Director-General is carrying in coping with this very important international body.
This afternoon I have no intention of talking to you about the problems of Australia; they are numerous and they are varied, but we do recognize the fact that they have no particular interest for you. Instead of that, I intend to confine my remarks to three main issues.
The first matter that I intend to deal with is the need for us all to be much more realistic in recognizing the limitations to what FAO can be expected to do with the resources, that are likely to be at its disposal. Secondly, I intend to refer to the urgent need, as I see it, to develop some simple way whereby there can be effective and not just formal discussions between the divergent viewpoints which, obviously and understandably, exist between member countries of FAO. Then, finally, I intend to make a plea for proper support of the important programme which will be concerned with reducing the losses of food which occur after we have gone to all the trouble and expense of producing it.
Turning to the first point, I had occasion to say on Monday, when I was congratulating Ambassador Young on his McDougall Memorial Lecture, that every FAO Conference has found it difficult to agree on priorities within the proposed programme and that I am certain that this Conference will be no exception. I think you can sense that already. Indeed, could you really expect anything else? We know that in our countries every year when we are formulating our agricultural budgets, important and often quite urgent measures have to be put aside because we cannot find the money. In other words, our governments consider that they cannot hit the taxpayer any harder. So it is not surprising that when about 140 countries are all trying to get their problems dealt with as a matter of urgency, there is very strong competition for funds. That is no news to you but I do not think that we should feel any surprise when in every Conference we are confronted with the same situation. In my own view there is really very little to be gained by spending much more of our time in talking about general objectives and about what we should like to be done. There really is not much room for disagreement about our ultimate aims. They are in fact the same today as when FAO was founded and you can read them in the main entrance as you come into this building.
The disagreement between us comes when we try to decide what should be done first. That is where the trouble is: what should be done first, and what funds should be spent on particular proposals. The time has passed, at least in my judgement, of simply saying that more should be done. We know that only too well. We will use our time to greater advantage if we remember that, difficult though it may be, we have no option but to agree about what are the most urgent and the most important problems for the coming few years. If we do not reach agreement, somebody else is simply going to make a judgement on whatever data can be found. It is inevitable, in my opinion, that some of us will always go away from these Conferences feeling disappointed.
Turning now to my second point, I should like to elaborate on some remarks that I made when I addressed this Conference two years ago. I pointed out then that the tendency for countries to become members either of the Group of 77 or of some other group had reached the stage where discussions both in the Commissions and in the Plenary sessions were becoming increasingly formal and increasingly unproductive. I suggest that it is now high time that we face the fact that while often there appears to be vigorous discussion within each group, there is no effective mechanism whereby those groups can exchange their viewpoints in a quiet and informal atmosphere which would be conducive to compromise. I would like to point out that many things can be said, many things can be accepted, if they are said in private; things which would probably cause a tremendous row and lasting bitterness if they were said in public -and if you have doubts about that statement, ask any wife, ask any husband. I think on the basis of my own personal experience both in FAO and in the World Food Council that - progress in each body will continue to be quite seriously impeded unless we take account of the realities of the present situation.
It is not only that the present differences of viewpoint between the groups make the position of the Director-General unnecessarily difficult, but no group seems to have adequate opportunity for understanding the basic reasons for the viewpoints of others. Of course I realize as you do that most of our difficulties come back to the fact that the resources of FAO are limited. Moreover, it is a fact of life - human nature being what it is, and what it is always likely to be - that taxpayers all over the world are reluctant to assume heavier burdens even when better services are going to be pirovided in their own countries. It will never be easy for any government to persuade its taxpayers to pay up more to help other countries of whose circumstances those taxpayers usually know very little.
Therefore, if only because FAO's funds are bound to be always less than could be used to advantage, it is vital that the problem of helping each group to understand the approach of all the others should be resolved. Now, there are several ways in which useful consultation could be developed. The first essential, in my own view, is that the leaders of these groups should recognize quickly the damage that will be done to FAO if the present unfortunate situation is not corrected.
I have had a lot of hesitation about speaking to you in these terms because of the danger that I might be misunderstood, particuarly when my words must be interpreted into many languages. Added to that is the fact, as I expect some of you may know by now - I am only a bureaucrat, not a minister - but there is a good spirit in this Conference, and as I have been to four of these from 1971, I think I can make some judgement of that: there is a good spirit in this Conference and an evident desire for cooperation even at the cost of difficult compromise. For that reason I hoped that this might be the moment to make a positive suggestion which I should like to think would be in the interests of progress.
I now wish to come to make a few comments about the programme for reducing the loss of food after it has been harvested. This programme has in fact been discussed for a very long time, and detailed and careful technical analyses have been made in relation to it. The programme is in fact very urgently needed because all the forecasts of future food requirements indicate that if food losses in storage were to continue at their present appallingly high level, the provision of adequate food for future populations would require capital investment in agriculture which I am told would approach U. S. $4 000 million every year. This to an Australian is such a vast sum, an enormous sum that there must be some considerable doubt about the possibility of its being achieved. In order to reduce the need for such an enormous investment, the most economic approach is to reduce the big losses of food which occur after crops have been harvested. Many of the technical problems in reducing these losses are already quite well understood but there are still very many obstacles indeed to a rapid solution of this enormous practical human problem.
As I am sure you all know, the biggest losses occur in the warmer and in the moister climates of the world and particularly in the areas in which rice and other grains form the great bulk of the people's diet. Thus the reduction of losses would not only improve the food position of the peoples living in the tropics and the sub-tropics but would also make a very big contribution to the foreign exchange shortages of many countries; I might say exchange shortages which are often critical and chronic. I do not intend to over-burden you with masses of statistics but I would remind you that no less than 60 percent of the world population even today depends very largely on rice for the staple part of its diet.
It will of course be essential that the countries in which the post-harvest food losses occur should be closely involved in and should accept the main responsibility for the proposed pest control projects. Nothing else would be of much value.
FAO can define the problems carefully and it can support a detailed demonstration of control methods. It must, however, leave it at that stage to each country to make certain that effective pest control is applied to all its food storages. Now, here we face one of those incessant dilemmas, because not everything can be done at once. Some areas in which it is likely that a rapid technical progress could be made may in fact have to be put aside for a little while so that full attention can be concentrated on those countries in which the greatest need exists. Such a decision may, for some of us, be very hard to accept but we must not be tempted into trying to tackle everything at once and find as a result we do nothing effectively. Here, if I may add an interpolation, there are institutions in Australia which are ready and competent to make effective contributions in training people in many fields and while it is always invidious to single out one in particular I would like to mention particularly Roseworthy Agricultural College in South Australia which already has a very active training programme in which many of the young agricultural people from the Near East, North Africa and South-East Asia are already involved and will continue to be involved year by year.
Just before I close may I say that I would be very concerned indeed if any of you felt that what I have said this afternoon was designed to be abrasive; far from it. I certainly do not intend it in that way at all. On the other hand, as Dr. Sen said on Monday, because he and I belong to the generation which is now passing away, not too rapidly I hope, but passing away nonetheless, I felt I could
not avoid mentioning, on what may be the last occasion I address this Organization, a few of the basic issues which as far as I can see will never disappear, no matter how much we may wish that they would. FAO has done a tremendous amount for mankind and it will undoubtedly do a great deal more year by year but it is essential that the member countries, and by that I mean every single one of them, even including Australia, should be determined to look at the total situation, to look at it dispassionately and objectively. Without that progress will be impeded, it may well be frustrated. However, as I said, I am very, impressed by the spirit of this Conference. I suppose that an old man might be permitted to say it has a much more positive, a much more cooperative spirit than the one that I recall two years ago, four years ago, six years ago and for that reason I have not any doubt that member countries will be anxious to help one another and that the future will be in the hands of people who are determined to make the best of the opportunities that they can offer this Organization.
A. M. AL-SUDEARY (International Fund for Agricultural Development) (interpretation from Arabic): Mr. Chairman, Honourable Ministers, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am very happy first of all to address to you, Mr. Chairman, very warm congratulations upon your election as Chairman of this Conference. This without any doubt will constitute a reason for the success of this Conference. I am extremely happy to have this opportunity to address this Conference in my capacity as Chairman of the Preparatory Commission of IFAD.
This occasion is particularly significant because in less than four weeks from now the Governing Council of IFAD will hold its first meeting and begin its operations.
It has taken exactly three years to implement the historic Resolution 13, adopted by the World Food Conference to set up a new International Fund for Agricultural Development, but this interval would not look very long if we recall all the important stages that had to be crossed before the Fund could become a reality. If the Preparatory Committee of IFAD had its task facilitated that was because the officials facilitated that task and great courage had to be used and many efforts had to be made in order to respect the terms of the Convention for the creation of the Fund.
Following approval of Resolution 13 of the World Food Conference by the United Nations General Assembly, the Secretary-General convened meetings of interested countries to discuss its implementation.
The stage was thus set for the Fund's Preparatory Commission of which I have had the honour to be Chairman, to start its work with the help of a small secretariat. There was much to be done if the Fund was to become operational as soon as possible after the conditions stipulated in the Agreement had been complied with.
The next important stage was reached on 20 December 1976 when the target of one billion dollars of pledges was reached and the Agreement Establishing the Fund was opened for signatures and ratification by the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Many of the delegates present here participated in the long and constructive negotiations that became necessary to resolve the conflict of views on various matters.
It has taken almost 11 months since the Agreement was opened for signatures, for the Governments concerned to complete the process of ratification of the Agreement. Since a sufficient number of countries have ratified the Agreement, I have accordingly convened the first meeting of the Governing Council from 13 December 1977 in Rome.
I would like to point out here that the Preparatory Commission, which started its work in September 1976 has covered a lot of ground. It has drawn up and negotiated an agreement with the United Nations to bring IFAD into relationship with the United Nations as a specialized agency. It has also concluded draft agreements with FAO, the World Bank, UNDP and the three regional development banks for operational support. It has formulated for the consideration of the Governing Council the Fund's lending policies and criteria. It has also prepared all the first or preliminary drafts of the various rules of procedure, regulations, byelaws and certain other legal instruments that will be required by the Fund. Thanks to this preparatory work, the Fund will be able to commence its lending operations soon after the. Governing Council has met.
The Fund will differ in a number of ways, and notably in its structure, from the remainder of the other agencies of the United Nations system and other international financing agencies.
Its member countries are divided into three categories. The first consists of OECD members, Category II is made up of the OPEC countries, and Category III consists exclusively of ''developing" countries, namely the beneficiary countries. As each category will have an equal number of votes -that is 600 each - on both the Fund's Governing Council and Executive Board, donors (that is OPEC and developed countries) and developing countries (or OPEC and developing countries) can obtain a majority vote since Category II consists of countries with are both "donors" and "developing", in other words beneficiary.
This new arrangement will, I hope, greatly help the interaction between donor and recipient countries and in following new approaches to the problems of development.
Another way in which the Fund will differ from other specialized agencies is in size. Its staff will be small. The total, in all categories, during the first two years of operations, will not be more than about ninety. This is because the Fund intends to engage the services of other competent international and national institutions and agencies for the various stages of its operations.
Just as the United Nations itself and its specialized agencies, founded after World War II, were born of an idealism nurtured in the long and exhausting years of that struggle, so today more than 30 years later the International Fund for Agricultural Development is the product of a growing international anxiety about the world's ability to feed its rapidly expanding population.
The Fund, to quote Article 2 of the Agreement, will "mobilize additional resources, to be made available on concessional terms for agricultural development in developing Member States".
That is the Fund's overall directive.
Article 7 defines its priorities. The Fund shall be guided "by the need to increase food production and to improve the nutritional level of the poorest population, in the poorest food deficit countries", and, in regard to other developing countries, "by their potential for increasing food production". But likewise with them, the Fund shall give priority to the nutritional level of the poorest of people and the conditions of their lives. In considering eligibility for assistance, criteria to be used shall include in particular, the needs of low income countries and their potential for increasing food production, and due regard shall be paid to "a fair geographic distribution" of the Fund's resources.
In other words, while the Fund's resources will be available to all developing countries, its major target groups will be the small farmers and the landless cultivators. The latter now represent approximately one-third of the agricultural population in developing countries. The Fund will thus be coming into being with its focus primarily on the rural poor.
While the Fund will be a welcome new and additional source of finance for agriculture in the developing countries, it must not be forgotten that it will be only one of a number of such sources of external finance and that external finance is only one of the elements in the development of their agriculture. The Fund will therefore seek to maximize the impact of its resources by playing a catalytic role in increasing national and international funds directed to improving the lot of their rural poor. Thus, it will be prepared to take part in projects, jointly with other multilateral as well as bilateral agencies, while maintaining its own identity in the process and keeping its own objectives in mind.
The related aims in all the Fund's projects will be to increase food production, increase rural income and improve nutrition in developing countries. In seeking to realize these aims, emphasis initially will be on quick-maturing projects and accelerating a greater production of low-cost foods - particularly grain and root crops - which are most in demand and frequently consumed by people with very low incomes. At the same time, the Fund will consider cooperation with other agencies in longer-term activities such as land and water development, possibly bringing into cultivation land at present uncropped or lying fallow.
The range of projects in the field of food production qualifying for IFAD financing will include fisheries and livestock projects as well as projects for storage and processing.
I think it goes without saying that to be successful, programmes and policies which aim at increasing the incomes of the rural poor call for complementary programmes of agrarian reform, appropriate improvements in policies and institutions, the training of adequate extension personnel, and research which has particular relevance to small farmers and the landless. The Fund will therefore support efforts directed to these ends.
The Fund will normally finance projects whose overall impact benefit income distribution among small farmers and those without land. This is the first time that such a criterion will be adopted as an operational principle by an international financing institution.
As regards technical assistance: the Fund will provide it as part of its lending operations to help countries undertake feasibility studies for suitable projects and programmes for financing by the Fund, to increase the number of trained personnel available for research and extension; to assist countries in implementing monitoring systems for projects financed by the Fund; for special studies or pre-investment projects in areas which present particular problems; and to assist countries at the project implementation, stage, through training for project management staff.
Allow me here to refer to the proposed lending terms and conditions which the Fund will offer: a large proportion of the Fund's loans will be provided on highly concessional terms, carrying only a service charge of 1 percent annually with a repayment period of 50-60 years.
Loans will also be made on intermediate terms, with an annual interest rate of 4 percent and a repayment period of 20 years.
And there will be loans, on ordinary terms also, at 8 percent a year with a repayment period of 15 to 18 years.
It is now for the developing member countries of the Fund to make the best use of these resources in tackling their food problem and helping the rural poor. The Fund will be able to open its doors for business next month and will anxiously await proposals for project loans from its member countries. Where projects have not been already identified or prepared the Fund will be ready to organize on request by the member countries, special missions to identify or prepare projects for consideration by the Fund.
The process of formulating and implementing IFAD-funded projects will call for a high and continuing degree of cooperation and understanding between the parties to each project agreement, that is borrowing governments, the international and national institutions which will be called upon to assist in the implementation of projects, and the Fund itself. In this task we will look forward to close cooperation between FAO and IFAD. In this context I am gratified that full agreement has been reached on the cooperation agreement between FAO and IFAD. I would like to take this opportunity to express very deep gratitude to the Director-General of FAO for his support for the work of the Preparatory Commission and his readiness to give maximum support to the Fund in the future.
The Fund will expect to be judged by the results of its lending operations. To assess them, it will no doubt be necessary to evolve special indicators and techniques to measure the extent of its success in contributing to an improvement in the quality of life of the people concerned. A reduction in rural poverty, an improvement in nutrition and an increase in food production cannot be assessed solely in terms of pure economic indicators, such as food production or agricultural growth rates.
An essential pre-condition for the success of the Fund's lending operations will be that the recipient countries should be strongly committed to a development strategy designed to bring the prospect of a better life to the rural poor.
A. R. TANCO (World Food Council): Chairman Toyib, Director-General, Chairman Al-Sudeary, Mr. Vogel, my colleagues the Distinguished Ministers of Agriculture, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen:
Exactly three years ago to the day, the World Food Conference completed its meetings in this city. That was a time of crisis: starvation in Bangladesh and the Sahel, vastly increased prices of oil and fertilizer, a serious world grain shortage. The Conference, in which many of you took active part, adopted the Universal Declaration on the Eradication of Hunger and Malnutrition. Out of that Conference also arose a new body: the World Food Council, designed to ensure that the 22 action resolutions forming the Universal Declaration were put into effect.
I stand before you today as the new President of this World Food Council, having succeeded a most distinguished predecessor, Mr. Sayed Marei, the newly re-elected head of the Egyptian Parliament.
Mr. Marei, together with Drs. John Hannah and Sartaj Aziz, with the untiring efforte of my good friend Ambassador Al-Sudeary, have of late been responsible for one immense success; the establishment of the billion-dollar International Fund for Agricultural Development. By sheer resolve and consensus, as I reported to the General Assembly two weeks ago, with the new-found power of the OPEC countries put to good use, we have collectively managed to create the new source of funding for the developing nations of the world in their quest for increased food production. The World Food Council has pride of parenthood, but like a good parent we must now recognize that the child has grown to manhood. IFAD now has its own wellsprings of energy and will henceforth be a moving force in the world, under able leadership, channelling its considerable resources to the task of increasing food production in the hungry countries amongst us. We wish IFAD well on the eve of the first session of its Governing Council.
We now turn to other urgent matters on the agenda of the World Food Council.
I am not here, after all, to review past successes: rather I am here on behalf of the 36 nations of the World Food Council to dramatize the need for action on current food problems, to speak about the need for food plans as a means of increasing food production in the food-deficit nations, to spur the world community toward a concerted and systematic attack on the problem of malnutrition, to urge the rich nations to help build, in this time of plenty, stable mechanisms that will ensure world food security, and finally to offer assistance to nations in that most difficult of tasks - the negotiation of grain agreements which will ensure that farmers throughout the world are not betrayed into producing more but receiving less.
Neither am I here to burden you any further with an analysis of the world food situation, which has already been very adequately described by Director-General Saouma and other speakers in this assembly.
Instead, 1 would like to report to you that 36 Ministers and Plenipotentiaries, meeting quietly in Manila - on behalf of the United Nations General Assembly - arrived at a general global programme of action to eradicate hunger and malnutrition. The Council thus gave life to the resolutions of the World Food Conference by spelling out the steps that must be taken to translate these resolutions into reality. The Cbuncil - developed and developing nations alike - agreed in Manila that it was a necessary, feasible and attainable human objective to work deliberately to abolish global hunger and malnutrition.
This programme was not arrived at without disagreements, for there were disagreements over ideas and programs. It is our proud boast, however, that the programme was hammered out without the political division between developed and developing nations that has of late come to characterize almost all international fora. Hunger, we proved in Manila, knows no political boundaries.
We therefore commend to you the Manila Communiqué, which has been reproduced for you in FAO in Document C 77/24-Rev. 1. The programme of action it contains was unanimously endorsed by the ECOSOC last August in Geneva and only yesterday was adopted by the Second Committee of the General Assembly.
The main objective of the Council's Manila Communiqué is to help create the conditions and obtain the assistance that will make it possible for food deficit countries with severe malnutrition problems to increase their own food production. To help nations to feed themselves is our major goal. It is the only permanent solution to world hunger.
Thus, the continuing concern of the World Food Council, as indeed of all international food agencies, is to help build the capacity for increased and self-reliant food production in developing countries. This can be done, despite the limitations wrought by history and circumstances. It will take time to complete the task but in the words of the Chinese sage of old, Lao Tzu: "A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step".
In Manila, we took the first step.
We called on developing countries, especially the 43 food priority countries identified by the Council, to draft their own food plans, to initiate their own specific proposals for increasing food production, to develop the package of inputs and investments that they need to reach and sustain a 4 percent growth rate in food production.
We called on these developing countries to put a larger share of their own resources into food and agriculture. As it is today, the food priority countries have not more than a 2 percent growth rate in food production per annum and are therefore falling behind the population growth. In effect, they have a negative growth rate in food production per capita. In this, as in other concerns, to stand still is indeed to move backward.
We called on international agencies such as FAO and UNICEF to provide the necessary technical assistance to help developing countries to formulate food plans and bring them to a bankable and operational stage as soon as possible.
We called on the World Bank, the regional banks, IFAD, and UNDP to provide the necessary investments required to implement these food plans.
Finally, we agread that developed and other donor countries must be prepared to back these proposals -bilaterally and multilaterally - with adequate external assistance; we estimate this to be of the magnitude of at least 8. 3 billion dollars, or over twice the level now flowing, of which 6. 5 billion dollars must be concessional.
This three-way set of obligations - developing countries to commit themselves to food plans and increased resources going to food, international financing institutions and donor countries to invest in these food plans, and international technical assistance agencies to provide supplementary manpower and expertise - this three-way relationship is fundamental to progress in increasing food production in developing countries.
The Bureau and the Secretariat of the Council have not stopped at plans.
As a first step of the implementation food planning exercise, we have approached most of the major international financial institutions to enlist their support for food planning in food priority countries. I have talked to President McNamara of the World Bank, Ambassador AI-Sudeary of IFAD, President Yoshida of the Asian Development Bank, Brad Morse of UNDP and Administrator Gilligan of USAID, They all without reservations subscribe to the concept of comprehensive food planning by the most food-short nations. They are all willing to help finance the preparation of such plans to provide technical personnel if need be for this purpose. Equally important, they are more than willing to invest in the bankable components of these plans. In fact, many of the heads of these financial institutions have declared categorically that the bottleneck to increased investment in food production is not a lack of funds but a lack of well-thought-out, bankable projects. If this indeed is the bottleneck, then let us by all means collectively help food-deficit countries prepare feasible food plans ready for funding, because in so doing we will thus help increase the amount of both external and internal resources going into food production in developing nations.
That food plans are essential is beyond question. We may quibble over which specific food agencies will perform the different functions involved. But the task must be undertaken.
We in the World Food Council conceive of our function as one of harnessing the political will in a country, among the highest political leadership in the nation, to commit itself and its resources to a food plan and to its successful implementation including a commission to devote more internal resources to such plans. Beyond that, we hope to be instrumental in getting developing countries and financial institutions or donor countries together to help, in short, in obtaining increased investments in food production programmes in developing countries.
Already, the Consultative Group for Food Production and Investment, the CGFPI, has started food plans in four food priority countries, Bangladesh in Asia, Honduras in Latin America, the Sudan and Senegal in Africa. In addition, the World Bank is now fielding five missions to Indonesia to help that country prepare an integrated food plan which they can then invest in. The Council hopes to push these plans, help bring them to the point where they are bankable, match countries and sources of funds, and thereafter step back and monitor the realization of each of the components of these plans. It is hoped that the World Bank will take responsibility for Bangladesh and Indonesia, the Inter-American Bank and USAID in Honduras, IFAD perhaps for Senegal, and the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development for Sudan. These responsibilities should include assistance in the final preparation of plans and in feasibility studies that may be required for components of the plan, and for the necessary investments thereafter. We trust that these projects will materialize shortly.
Food plans for other food priority countries should follow in due time, bearing in mind the warning that we must not take on too much, too soon, lest in attempting everything, we accomplish nothing.
Three additional imperatives, in our view, are required to increase food production.
First is the need to correct the paucity of research on tropical crops. This means that our international research institutions must continue to focus their resources and efforts on developing high-yielding varieties and modern technology which are suited to the tropical conditions of developing countries in the South. Since the rich developed nations in the North are in the temperate zone, most agricultural research in the past has been concentrated on temperate crops and animals. This has become a handicap to the developing world. We must now speedily increase the sum of our knowledge of tropical flora and fauna if we are to increase our production in developing countries.
Knowledge, however, is useless if it cannot be conveyed to those who need it most. Equally important, therefore, is the need to establish an institutionalised effective mechanism for transferring the technology developed by international research institutions to national research systems and even further, to the farmers themselves of developing food-priority countries. FAO, with its capable leadership and its immense reservoir of skilled manpower, can and must fill this need. It is, par excellence, the international institution most qualified to act as the link between the centres of research and the developing countries. We trust that FAO will emphasize this function.
We trust that FAO will continue to undertake this function as a very special one that belongs uniquely to this premium world food agency. We trust also that the developing countries will strengthen their national research systems so that each nation or region can ultimately generate its own intermediate technology.
In this connection I would like to strongly endorse the concept enunciated a few days ago by Ambassador Andrew Young of the United States in the McDougall Lecture for this year. He proposed in this forum the establishment of a food corps within the United Nations system. I believe that the establishment of such an international volunteer organization within-the United Nations would have clear advantages. It would serve to harness the idealism of the youth of all nations towards the clearly defined and urgent objective of eliminating hunger from the world. It would serve to sharpen the focus on the problem of food to the exclusion perhaps of other less important concerns. There are, however, as many people will see, various facets of this proposal which will require further study before such an idea can become operational. It is my hope that we can overcome operational difficulties and thus be able to ride on the idealism and energy of the youth of the world. If we do succeed in this we will be able to unleash a force that will know no barriers.
In addition to relevant research and its effective transfer, the second imperative for increased food production in developing countries is the need, often neglected, to provide adequate credit for the small farmer. We often overlook the fact that the farmer in developing countries is too poor to buy the inputs required to increase his crop. Without enough credit he cannot reap the fruits of advanced technology.
The third imperative is the need for management training to help developing countries build their own corps of competent food managers. This will, in large part, answer the often asked question of "absorptive capacity" which has come of late to the verbal language of international financial institutions which is invariably raised in measuring the ability of a country to deal with its own food problems. If this indeed is the problem, then by all means let us mount managerial development programmes to train food managers in developing countries instead of simply bewailing and bemoaning the absence of such managers.
These three prerequisites for increased production in food priority countries - research, credit and management training - will require both manpower and funds. It is our hope that the World Food Council will turn its attention at its Fourth Session in Mexico to these urgent problems.
Until now everyone has piously extolled the need to solve the problem of malnutrition in developing countries. However, very few have clearly explained how this is to be done. This is an area where good intentions far out-distance concrete programmes and actions.
The World Food Council has constantly battled for more attention, a better and shorter focus on the problem and more integrated action by UN agencies towards a solution of the problem of malnutrition. As the Director-General, Mr. Saouma, has mentioned, no less than the ACC, composed of the heads of all the major UN agencies, has created a sub-committee to resolve this problem. It is fortunate that this sub-committee is headed by the No. 2 man in UNICEF, Mr. Hayward, whose dedication is as deep as his competence. He has pledged to the World Food Council that he will present an integrated programme of action to the Fourth Session of the World Food Council by June of next year, that he will present some kind of a grand design to lessen the degree of malnutrition in the most severely affected developing nations. This will be a major item on the Council's agenda next June in Mexico City.
It is clear to those of us familiar with food problems that increased food production in itself is not Sufficient to solve the problem of malnutrition. There is the close relationship between size of family and the malnourlshment of a child. There is the problem of income. Above all else, there is the problem of the housewife not knowing what to feed the child that she weans from her breast, a problem Of nutrition education.
Malnutrition is a compound of problems in different disciplines and must thus be approached from the vantage point of different ministries. It requires a high degree of coordination often missing in developing nations and in the world itself.
We hope that together we will be able to come up with a concrete programme of action, globally and by country, on the problem of malnutrition by June.
Until developing countries become self-sufficient in food, until they have solved their problem of malnutrition, food aid will continue to be a major interim measure to help people feed themselves. I will not dwell on this, because the Director-General has already explained where we are. I will simply say that contributions of between 300, 000 tons and 400, 000 tons to the emergency reserve is already
a reality, but we do need and are seeking from traditional donors as well as from developing countries, socialist countries, OPEC countries, the balance of some 100, 000 tons to 200, 000 tons which we need as an emergency reserve for this year. The need for this may become evident very soon. The Director-General has already pointed out the growing and very serious problem of drought in the Sahel countries. We need only a few hundred thousand tons of grain to reach the World Food Conference's minimum level of 10 million tons. We are now up to 9. 6 million tons. Hopefully we will reach this goal this year and donor countries will find ways of guaranteeinng at least this amount on a long-term continuing basis. But this is not enough. It is not enough if we are to use food aid as an interim measure to relieve hunger now and in the next ten years. The way we use food aid, for instance, is not good enough. The Committee on Food Aid was formed by the World Food Conference to increase and improve the policy framework of food aid. Policies have to be developed that ensure that food aid will promote rather than hinder increased food production, that it will promote and bring about more local food security, better nutrition, more employment and higher incomes for the poor and the hungry. I am sure that the Committee on Food Aid is taking this task seriously and that it will now turn its attention towards policies designed to attain those objectives. However, it is the governments represented in this room, yours and mine, which must come to the CFA meeting next year prepared to say that we must transform food aid and we must start now. No one else can do it.
Steps were announced at the Manila meeting by a number of grain exporting countries to establish domestic reserves, including domestic reserves announced by the United States. Grain exporters have recently made positive proposals to the International Wheat Council. Importing countries at the IWC have responded to these proposals. I am informed that there is a large area of agreement, but still many significant problems to be negotiated. This is a crucial time in these negotiations and we urge all countries participating in the International Wheat Council meeting in London on November 28 to lend their greatest support to a newer draft agreement which can be negotiated by February 1978. It would be inexcusable if a sound reserve proposal did not emerge in the next few months. Any claim of concern for the hungry and malnourished is a hollow cry without an international grain reserve. No commercial or regional considerations can justify a callous disregard for the needs of the millions who must suffer silently, even die, if a reserve is not in place.
Finally, the Council also recongized that the increasing food surpluses and food self-sufficiency in developed countries is in part due to national policies that subsidize farming. This is also linked to the growing food deficits of developing countries, where agriculture is often the main source of revenue. Imbalances in world food trade which result from these policies have a direct bearing on the food problems of the developing nations.
After years of delay, negotiations in GATT to stabilize, improve, liberalize and expand food trade have started anew. We are watching these negotiations to determine how the Council can best act to encourage further improvements in trade to help solve the food problems of the developing countries.
All that I have said thus far means that we have taken a few steps away from the precipice. What is important is not the words in our Communique. What is important is that the words be implemented, that action results from the words.
The success or failure of implementation will not in the ultimate analysis depend on the actions of the World Food Council. It will depend on the actions of FAO, the World Bank and the regional banks, the UNDP, IFAD, UNICEF, WHO, the World Food Programme and others. More than these agencies, it will depend largely on the actions and policies of individual governments, yours and mine. We must take the decisions that are needed in our own countries and we must reflect our concerns and intent in the governing bodies of the agencies which deal with food.
As I said to ECOSOC, the World Food Council will discharge its responsibilities quietly wherever possible, with fanfare when urgently necessary.
I also said in Manila, in Geneva and in New York that we are not in competition with any person or entity. The job entrusted to us by the General Assembly is one of initiating, coordinating and monitoring. We are not supposed to - we will not - duplicate the functions of others. But we cannot and will not relinquish the responsibility entrusted to us of pushing, prodding, coordinating and monitoring the progress of the world towards the elimination of hunger and malnutrition.
We all believe that the World Food Council is not a forum of futility, not an international debating society. It can get things done. It can triumph over the problems of international bureaucracy, of red tape in the United Nations, because our determination to achieve will triumph over all, and determined we are. We are determined to increase food production in the world, particularly in the poorest and hungriest of nations in a spirit of self reliance. We will persuade the grain-rich nations to set aside international reserves in a concerted burst of generosity, to increase food aid and donate to an emergency food reserve in a spirit of compassion.
We will strive in a spirit of love to direct the world's efforts to save our malnourished children from a half-life or even death. To these ends we must all bend our collective political will. Hunger recognizes no colour or creed. We must implement our agenda for action to eradicate hunger and malnutrition from the face of this earth for all time. I said in Manila: it can be done, it must be done, it will be done. I ask you all, I ask the whole world to join us in this solemn undertaking.
Applause
Applaudissements
Aplausos
S. S. BARNALA (India): Mr. Chairman, Director-General, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen: first of all, Mr. Chairman, let me congratulate you on your election to this high office. We are especially proud that you come from our region. Also I should like to join others in congratulating and welcoming the new members of our fraternity in FAO, with whose aspirations and feelings we have always identified ourselves.
I feel privileged to address this august assembly, attended by 97 Ministers of Agriculture, and exchange views with distinguished colleagues from all parts of the world. The biennal Conferences of FAO provide an excellent opportunity for taking stock of the performance of world agriculture and for outlining the future course of action. I am glad that the main theme selected for discussion at this Conference is investment in agriculture, which indeed is of vital importance for accelerating the pace of development.
It is a matter of gratification that the last two years have witnessed a considerable improvement on the food and agricultural front. World cereal production in 1976 was up by over 100 million tons; in 1977 again, the estimated production may be around the 1976 level. Both the developing and the developed countries have shared the increase. In my own country, the cereal output during the past two years was higher than the levels attained earlier. Present indications for 1977-78 also point to an excellent crop. The improvement in the food situation has been reflected in the easing of the supply and price situation. Cereal stocks in India are at a level which is the highest so far. Fortunately, world stocks have also risen to a relatively reasonable level.
Weather alone has not contributed to the growth in food output. The developing countries have been making vigorous efforts in the adoption of modern technology, which has helped to strengthen the very base of agricultural development.
In India, the new Government is according a place of primacy to the development of agriculture in its National Plan. During 1977-78, the public sector outlay for agriculture and allied activities has been enhanced by 31 per cent over the previous year's level. This has helped in raising the tempo of agricultural development. Irrigation facilities are being extended by over two million hectares a year. The offtake of fertilizers, which was below 2. 9 millions tons in 1975-76, is expected to increase by about 50 per cent in two years'time. Special programmes have been launched for increasing the production of pulses and oilseeds which are important sources of protein and fat. We propose to intensify the various development measures in the coming years for achieving sustained increases in food and agricultural output.
Even though the overall performance of agriculture in the developing countries during the last two to three years has been satisfactory, we have to consider whether this performance is adequate and evenly distributed among countries and whether this would be sustainable in future. The available data show that for cereals, the average annual increase in production in the developing market economies during the three years 1974-76 was 2. 9 per cent which fell short of the estimated rate of growth of demand of 3. 3 per cent.
There were, besides, wide disparities as among different regions and countries, and even a negative rate of growth in the least developed countries; the countries in the Sahelian Zone are again facing a food crisis due to crop failures. We also know that weather-induced fluctuations and intermittent declines in output would retard the growth rates over a longer period.
Whether or not a sustained growth in agricultural output would be feasible in the future, would depend on a number of factors. Inputs like fertilizers and pesticides being vital for augmenting agricultural production, any constraint on their availability may affect the growth. Here I may express concern about the renewed upward movement in the prices of fertilizers witnessed recently in the international market. If this trend is not reversed or at least curbed, I am afraid, fertilizer consuption in the developing countries would suffer considerably.
Investment being a pre-requisite for growth, the pace of development in the future would also depend on the availability of financial resources. The World Food Conference had identified the principal programmes of food production and rural development needing additional investment.
Mr. Chairman, irrigation is a basic input for increasing and stabilising crop yields and diversifying agriculture. The developing countries have vast irrigation potential but they have not been able to exploit large ground and surface water resources due to paucity of funds. In my own country, against the irrigation potential of nearly 107 million hectares, we have not been able to exploit even half of that so far. A forward and determined irrigation plan is being developed with the aim of bringing nearly 17 million hectares under irrigation during the next five years. An idea of the financial resources required for implementing the new irrigation plan will be had from the fact that for extending irrigation during 1977-78 to an additional 2. 4 million hectares, we have provided 16 billion rupees or 1. 9 billion US dollars.
Mr. Chairman, in most of the developing countries, large areas have to practise unirrigated agriculture. The approach in such areas has to be two-fold: extension of dry farming technology and soil and land development so as to control erosion, improve soil fertility and conserve moisture. If these programmes have to make any tangible impact on agricultural output and levels of living of farmers, they must be mounted on a massive scale.
With a view to diversifying the agricultural economy in the developing countries, much greater stress than hitherto, will have to be laid on animal husbandry, dairying, fisheries and forestry. For livestock development, broad-based programmes covering the entire cattle population, health cover, production of deep frozen semen, fodder, dairying and marketing components would need to be taken up.
Mr. Chairman, we had taken up in India an Operation Flood for the development of dairy industry with assistance under the World Food Programme. Based on the experience of the first phase, the second phase of the Operation Flood, which would be much bigger in dimension and involve much larger financial investment, would be taken up. This experience can be drawn upon by other developing countries too.
The possibility of exploiting the marine fisheries. has increased substantially with the declaration of 200 miles of exclusive economic zone towards the coast-line. For this purpose, the countries concerned would require large trawler fleets. This will have to be accompanied by a programme of harbour development and augmentation of indigenous trawler manufacturing capacity. In the sphere of island fish culture, there has been a research break-through. There has, however, been a lag in converting the new knowledge to practice. Measures to increase yields from inland sources will have to be pursued vigorously, and techiniques of induced breeding passed on to fish farmers through a widespread programme.
Mr. Chairman, the developing countries are as concerned about agriculture as about rural developments. Since agriculture development per se does not eliminate rural poverty, we will have to accelerate the pace of employment and income generation in certain backward areas and among weaker sections of the people. An integrated rural development programme is being launched in several countries for achieving the twin objectives of increased agricultural production and full employment. This programme will no doubt aim at integrating the on-going programmes like those for small farmers, marginal farmers and drought prone areas, but to make it a success, not only these on-going programmes will have to be intensified but also additional resources provided for.
We from the developing countries recognise that bulk of the resources needed for agricultural development will have to be provided through internal means. It is, however, evident that the capacity of these countries to find additional resources is limited. It is in this context that I would like to draw the attention of this Conference to the Resolutions adopted by the World Food Conference, the World Food Council and the Conference on International Economic Cooperation calling for significantly higher external assistance.
The World Food Council and the Conference on International Economic Cooperation have recently recommended that the international community should increase its official development assistance to food and agricultural production in order to achieve, as soon as possible, at least a four per cent sustained rate of growth of food and agricultural production in developing countries.
The estimate of US$8. 3 billion at 1975 prices in external resources on an annual basis is considered a necessary element for achieving this four per cent minimum rate of growth.
The estimate of aid requirement at 1977 prices has now been revised upwards -close to a leve of US$10 billion.
I might mention in this regard that the envisaged rate of growth of four per cent in food and agricultural production would be the barest minimum if we want to make a dent on the problem of rural unemployment and poverty in these countries.
A recently completed study by the United Nations indicates that the achievement of the objectives of the New International Economic Order, including an approximate halving of the ratio between per capita income in developing and developed countries, would entail an increase in agricultural production in the developing countries of the order of five per cent per annum. This rate has to be compared with the actual performance of around 2. 5 per cent a year in 1971-75 and is indicative of the need for considerable step-up in the total investment and in the flow of external resources. Even the estimate of external assistance of US$10 billion per annum would have to be improved upon.
I am, however, constrained to observe that the total commitment of aid to agriculture during 1976 is estimated to be 7 per cent lower than that during 1975.
The overall grant element of aid to agriculture has fallen from 61 per cent in 1973 to 50 per cent in 1976, and the terms of lending have hardened. Regional flows bring out disparities among the recipient countries; the aid per capita as well as per hectare of cultivated area received by the poor countries is much less than that received by the others. These are disquieting developments and call for concerted action so that the present trends can be reversed. I feel that a coordinated strategy should be developed by all international agencies including the International Fund for Agricultural Development in ensuring the continued flow of resources to developing countries to help them to initiate and build programmes of national relevance.
Before I conclude, let me deal with an important element of food security system to which the world community stands committed. Augmenting world foodgrain production and building up of a sizeable grain reserve are essential pre-requisites for ensuring food security. Food security in the world has no doubt improved during the last two years as a result of increased grain production and consequent replenishment of stocks. But these developments should not make us believe that the world has come to possess unwanted surpluses or that excessive resources are being deployed in agriculture. We are far from this. A widespread drought across the Continents can still land us in difficulties.
I would, therefore, suggest that not only the developing countries but also the developed countries should continue efforts towards augmenting food supplies. The developing countries, particularly those whose production falls short of requirements should be enabled to build up and maintain national reserves which could be used for meeting the emergencies at short notice. Modern storage facilities would also be required in these countries. We would, therefore, urge that food aid and financial resources should be provided not only for meeting the current consumption but also for helping the developing countries to build and hold stocks and to create storage capacity. Expanded food aid is also needed for improving the nutritional standards of the under-nourished and malnourished peoples of these countries. It is unfortunate that food aid in recent years has remained below the minimum level of 10 million tons recommended by the World Food Conference. I would, therefore, suggest that specific provisions should be made in the new International Grains Agreement for assuring food assistance of not less than 10 million tons a year and safeguarding other economic interests of the developing countries.
We welcome the establishment of the International Emergency Reserve of cereals which in our view would help promote World Food Security. Even though a developing country like ours is hot really a food surplus country. I am glad to say that in response to the appeal made by the Director General, my government has decided to contribute to this Reserve 50 thousand tons of wheat on replenishment basis.
The recent upturn in food production should not lull us into complacency. There are teeming millions in the world who do not get even two square meals a day. The problem is not merely of availability of food; it is also of purchasing power of the poor people. They are not interested in getting food free. They are keen to work and earn a reasonable income for buying food and other requirements. The valuable human resources available in the developing countries could be put to proper use only by creating infrastructure for development and providing job opportunities. Augmenting food and agricultural production coupled with special programmes for weaker sections could provide fuller employment and higher incomes to the farming community in these countries. This calls for substantital increase in investment. We are Convinced that the requisite order of resources can be found provided there is purposive action and commitment at the national and international levels.
FAO has a vital role to play in reducing poverty and improving nutritional standards of the people. This Organisation, therefore, needs all support of the member nations to achieve the objectives for which it was set up.
My delegation, therefore, supports the imaginative and concrete measures which the Director-General has initiated in fulfilment of the objectives of this Organisation.
We support the level of the budget suggested by the Director-General, which is very pragmatic and is the barest minimum to implement the task set before him by the earlier Conferences and Council Sessions.
We would also like to support the Director General's proposal for setting apart a Special Fund to prevent the food losses.
We would like to compliment the Director-General for his dynamism, initiative and drive in putting forward these proposals. I would also like to congratulate his band of colleagues who are strengthening his hands in implementing the concrete programmes.
The war on hunger and poverty is to go on even though it will be a prolonged and protracted one. It is a war which has to be fought by the entire international community transcending all barriers of race, religion or ideology. I would like to assure this Organisation that we in India identify ourselves with the entire human race in fighting this war and we shall continue to play our role in this regard.
M. G. MARCORA (Italie): Je suis heureux, au nom du Gouvernement italien en mon nom personnel, de souhaiter la bienvenue la plus cordiale aux délégations des Pays Membres de la FAO, aux représentants des autres organisations internationales et à tous ceux qui sont ici présents.
Je désire saluer de façon particulière les Collègues Ministres de l'Agriculture. Leur présence à Rome à cette occasion souligne l'importance des travaux de la Conférence de la FAO pour l'économie de nos pays et en même temps pour la recherche d'un meilleur équilibre mondial.
Je désire aussi exprimer au Directeur général de la FAO mon appréciation pour les résultats du travail bien complexe et délicat, accompli par l'organisation pendant ces années.
Cette appréciation je dois aussi l'exprimer pour d'autres motifs. Un de ces motifs est le choix du thème de la section spéciale du Rapport annuel sur la situation mondiale de l'alimentation et de l'agriculture consacrée cette année au problème des ressources d'énergie, avec référence au secteur agricole.
Nous savons tous que la situation de l'énergie et ses perspectives constituent un problème d'envergure mondiale, sur lequel la plupart des pays se penche avec beaucoup de souci. Je suis d'avis que la large revue des ressources énergétiques et des consommations d'énergie en agriculture et dans la chaîne alimentaire, aussi bien que les indications fournies pour le futur, représentent une importante matière de modification pour chacun de nous. Je pense aussi qu'une discussion plus approfondie de ces sujets à l'occasion d'une de nos prochaines rencontres pourrait être très opportune.
L'autre motif d'appréciation dérive du thème relatif aux investissements dans le secteur agricole, sur lequel notre attention a été attirée de façon particulière comme point de référence pour les déclarations des Chefs des délégations à cette 19ème session de la Conférence de la FAO.
Mon pays est particulièrement sensible à ce thème. D'autre part l'Italie se trouve dans une situation d'une certaine façon particulière. Tout en étant un pays industrialisé elle souffre encore, surtout dans quelques zones, de certains des problèmes auxquels doivent faire face les pays en voie de développement.
En plus, surtout au cours des années plus récentes, elle est devenue une grande importatrice de produits alimentaires a cause de la croissance rapide des consommations, auxquelles l'augmentation des disponibilités nationales, quoique remarquable, n'a pas réussi à faire face.
Dans ce sens, le déficit de la balance commerciale du secteur agricole-alimentaire constitue sans doute un des problèmes les plus critiques de l'économie nationale. Il est rendu plus grave par les difficultés de la situation énergétique.
Mon pays connaît donc soit les difficultés connexes avec le développement de l'agriculture, soit celles concernant l'approvisionnement des aliments nécessaires sur les marchés internationaux.
Sur la base de notre expérience nous sommes donc convaincus que la solution du problème alimentaire mondial exige l'adoption simultanée de nombreuses directives.
Nous n'ignorons pas la présence de situations particulières et savons que, face à ces situations, des initiatives impliquant la solidarité des peuples sont rendues nécessaires.
Nous sommes cependant d'avis que la voie principale pour la solution du problème est celle de procéder en suivant les critères de l'économie.
Nous sommes aussi convaincus qu'en respectant ces critères, une grande contribution peut être donnée par l'adoption de méthodologies capables d'assurer une mobilisation sur les marchés des surplus que plusieurs pays peuvent mettre à la disposition pour faire face aux exigences mondiales, dans la mesure où ils ont résolu leurs mêmes problèmes.
Il s'agit d'une thèse; que nous avons maintes fois soutenue au sein de la Communauté Economique Européenne, dont l'Italie fait partie. La Communauté dans son ensemble enregistre - par l'effet de la politique agricole suivie jusqu'à présent dans certaines pays, et pour un grand nombre de produits - la formetion de remarquables quantités de surplus qui encombrent ses entrepots, qui entraînent de notables charges financières et qu'elle tache souvent de vendre à des prix largement inférieurs à ceux qui ont été payés aux producteurs. En même temps, dans certaines zones de la Communauté, des situations de carence se vérifient, qui finissent par favoriser la spéculation.
Nous avons soutenu que le stockage de ces surplus ne doit pas avoir lieu seulement dans les zones où ils se forment, mais dans tout le territoire de la Communauté, de façon à en permettre une introduction plus aisée dans les circuits commerciaux, lorsque cela est nécessaire. Si la caractéristique de la Communauté est la formation d'un marché agricole unique, avec toutes les charges qui s'en suivent, surtout pour certains pays, il est juste que les surplus de la Communauté soient distribués dans toute la zone de ce marché, afin d'éviter des situations particulières de carence et des manoeuvres de spéculation.
Nous pensons que cette ligne directrice peut être suivie aussi sur le plan mondial et que les surplus des pays excédentaires, une fois satisfaites leurs exigences, même de caractère stratégique, peuvent être disloquées non seulement dans leurs territoires, mais dans les zones du monde sensibles, tout en restant la propriété des pays producteurs.
Il ne s'agit pas d'assistance et il ne s'agit pas de sortir du marché, puisque le pays producteur devrait utiliser ces surplus non pour les donner, mais pour les vendre.
Cependant, avoir la disponibilité immédiate de ces produits sur les marchés déficitaires, signifie être en mesuré de gérer directement la manoeuvre des stocks.
Cela peut dire agir non sur le plan de l'assitance mais sur le plan de l'économie et de sarationalisation.
En tout cas, nous sommes aussi convaincus que le problème alimentaire ne peut pas être résolu de façon permanente sans un accroissement notable des productions, surtout dans les pays en voie de développement, et donc sans une augmentation massive des investissements dans le secteur agricole.
Cette nécessité a été du reste reconnue déjà, il y a trois ans, par la Conférence mondiale de l'alimentation et a été accueillie par la FAO. qui a fait des investissements une des matières prioritaires de sa nouvelle politique.
Nous sommes tous donc d'accord sur ce principe. Mais, à mon avis, nous devons dépasser la question du principe. Il s'agit surtout de voir quel est le sens qu'il faut donner à une politique des investissements, qui ne signifie pas seulement convoyer vers le secteur agricole un certain courant de capitaux.
Mon pays, dans le cadre de la politique d'amélioration des activités agricoles-industrielles, est en train de préparer une série de mesures (Plan Agricole-Alimentaire) visant surtout à la réduction des déséquilibres existant entre zones rurales plus développées et zones à économie faible (comme justement se présente le Midi de l'Italie), moyennant le renforcement de l'agriculture.
Les investissements agricoles, dans la logique de la politique agricole nationale, constituent un des instruments essentiels pour réduire la différence económico-sociale existant entre zones pauvres et zones riches. Dans ce' sens, nous sommes profondément convaincus qu'un modèle de développement économi- que ne peut pas faire abstraction, à coté d'une dotation suffisante de structures industrielles, de l'existence d'une agriculture, bien articulée tant sur le plan de la production que sur celui de l'organisation. Seulement si la collectivité est douée de pareilles réalités económico-productives nous pensons qu'il est possible d'atteindre une croissance harmonieuse de l'économie et un progrès constant du pays. Mais, à coté de ce premier objectif, le programme massif d'interventions qui depuis longtemps, mais surtout dans le futur, sera adopté au fur et à mesure dans notre pays, vise aussi à la réduction du déficit de la balance agricole alimentaire. Cela non, seulement afin de contribuer, même dans une mesure très modeste à l'assainissement de nos comptes avec l'étranger (qui, comme l'on sait, présentent dans les cinq derniers cinq ans une allure très dangereuse pour notre économie), mais surtout pour commencer à nous placer dans l'optique de la spécialisation régionale, en favorisant ainsi
le processus de coopération économique internationale qui trop souvent est sacrifié aux intérêts d'autre nature. Ainsi pour atteindre cet objectif, nous sommes profondément convaincus que, moyennant la spécialisation régionale agricole, il est possible d'atteindre l'intensification des relations entre pays, et surtout entre pays en voie de développement et pays industrialisés. C'est une prémisse que nous pensons nécessaire pour le raffermissement des liens d'amitié et de coopération économique et des rapports d'amitié et de coopération entre les pays de notre planète.
Enfin l'ensemble du programme en faveur de l'agriculture nationale est consacré â l'amélioration des conditions de travail et de vie de tous ceux qui travaillent dans les campagnes. Nous sommes convaincus qu'il ne pourra pas y avoir de promotion dans ce secteur primaire, ni que l'agriculture aura une position centrale dans le cadre du développement économique, si elle ne se fonde pas sur l'homme, l'ouvrier agricole, le paysan, avec ses principales exigences de travail de vie, de santé. C'est justement diaprés cette conviction qu'au moyen des ressources financières que nous allons affecter à l'agriculture, nous nous efforçons|d'améliorer sensiblement la dotation actuelle de services sociaux dans les zones rurales, dotation de services sociaux constituant la garantie pour atteindre soit les objectifs quantitatifs de production soit les objectifs de modernisation des structures et des infrastructures agricoles.
Monsieur le Président, j'ai voulu souligner la direction dans laquelle l'Italie a l'intention de faire face à ses problèmes agricoles-alimentaires parce que je suis convaincu que cette manière d'établir ce plan peut représenter un point de référence utile pour tous ceux qui dans des conditions analogues se préparent à promouvoir l'amélioration des agricultures respectives. Nous savons que plusieurs autres pays sont en train de réaliser des programmes de développement agricole et nous souhaitons qu'on puisse arriver, même à court terme, à une confrontation continuelle et serrée de sorte que l'union des efforts soit à même de contribuer de façon valide à résoudre les graves problèmes que le déséquilibre · de la balance mondiale de l'alimentation pose continuellement à l'attention des gouvernements. Nous sommes conscients des difficultés et des obstacles dépendant des réalités économiques et des situations politiques. Nous sommes cependant d'avis qu'ils peuvent et doiventêtre surmontés, même au moyen de modalités concrètes de contacts continuels, pour que la communauté mondiale parvienne assez vite à un développement plus rapide et equilibré.
A. A. AHMADI (Iran): Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Centimen. Please accept my heartiest congratulations on your election as Chairman of this important Session. Here I would like to express appreciation to the Director-General and staff for the hard work that has been accomplished during the past two years. As we all remember in the early years of the present decade the world passed through a severe food crisis; the situation was especially serious in parts of Africa, and Asia. In 1974 world grain stocks fell to a minimum level of 107 million tons, and between 1971 and 1974 prices of wheat, rice and vegetable oil increased severalfold. This adverse situation was largely the result of unfavourable weather conditions which prevented increase of grain production at the rate necessary to meet the steadily increasing demand caused by a growing world population and by a rise in per capita consumption.
Thanks to generally favourable weather conditions the situation has improved since 1974. This improvement is no grounds for complacency. Two consecutive unfavourable years could easily wipe out reserves, again causing world food shortage, and in some areas famine.
The dangers are now recognized, and the need to increase global food production and carry adequate reserves to ensure worldwide availability of sufficient food with proper nutritional value is now accepted as an international obligation. Resolutions to this effect have created hope of better times ahead, especially in the developing countries. Still, by an all-out effort on international scale, we must ensure that resolutions are adequately translated into action. The general acceptance of the principle that food should not be used for political ends and the production from world resources of land and water should be optimised, places a responsibility on every nation to increase its agricultural production within its means. If the developed and industrial countries have the resources to make the greatest contribution in increasing agricultural production, this in no way lessens the obligation on the less fortunate to play as full a part as possible in this respect. One of the hidden dangers in massive aid programmes is that they may undermine self-help among the recipients or distract them from giving the necessary priority to food production in favour of more attractive industrialization and urbanization programmes. No doubt, introduction of a better pricing mechanism for raw materials exported by the developing countries could lessen the burden of aid and deficit financing on the part of industrial countries.
In Iran the major objectives of agricultural plans, in addition to increasing productivity, are to raise the standard of living and welfare of low-income groups in the rural areas. To this end considerable sums have been allocated to build infrastr, uctural facilities in rural areas and production
regions. With due attention to the characteristics of the rural economy several organizational models have been introduced. Among these are: Farm Corporations, rural and production cooperatives, medium-size mechanized farms and agro-industrial units. Finally our new "Agricultural poles" pattern which aims at an integrated development of farming and animal husbandry in various regions with optimum utilization of the country's soil and water resources is another approach to increase production. However, we have not committed ourselves to these patterns only but intend to introduce any approach which may prove to be of specific benefit in certain areas of the country.
We aim, by the turn of this century, to be self-sufficent in staple food grains, fruit, vegetables, poultry products and to produce over 80 per cent or more of our vegetable oil and sugar. Important contributions, particularly in connection with red meat production, will be needed from rainfed pasture and rangeland, which will produce 50 per cent of the red meat needed. To do so modern methods of cultivation designed to conserve soil moisture, will be introduced in the crop areas, and a major planned destocking programme is being initiated on the rangelands, to prevent their further degradation and eventually increase their productivity.
The implementation of this plan will call for concerted efforts by both the public and private sectors. The Government sees its role to provide the necessary infrastructure; establish the institutional framework through which necessary inputs reach the farmer; instigate desirable changes in farming structure, such as amalgamation and consolidation of uneconomic small plots into viable farm units; determine priority areas on which to concentrate services; and to provide means essential for the promotion of investment in agriculture.
The Government has embarked on an incentive programme providing outright grants, low rate interest loans to farmers and guaranteed minimum purchase price for basic agricultural products, as well as tax exemption for investment in agriculture.
At this point I wish to emphasize the importance we place on the prevention of waste. Our Sovereign, the Shahanshah, has called for the reduction of waste and losses, which have been estimated at present to be as high as 25 to 30 percent for some commodities. Considerable sums have been earmarked for investment in cold stores for meat and fruit, storage facilities at the village level and grain silos.
On the question of technology., Iran is well aware of the need to introduce into her agriculture the best available technology, to obtain the best available varieties of crops and breeds of livestock and to manage them in the most beneficial manner. We are also aware that much of this technology was initiated and developed in the industrial countries to suit an agricultural pattern structured differently from ours. This applies especially to agricultural machinery, which appears to become more sophisticated and more expensive year by year. Therefore, weshouldbe selective in the use of imported technology and adjust them to our own needs.
Small-holders in Iran are the vast majority of our farmers; they make significant contribution to our agricultural production. I believe that a case can be made for seeking machinery to fit the existing farming structure, rather than fitting the structure to improve machinery. I believe that the time has come for developing countries to start research into designing machinery suited to their own individual needs, and to lean far less on the work of engineers in developed countries with quite different conditions. I believe small farmers deserve to receive tools suited to their trade.
I wish to draw your attention briefly to a problem that has been causing much concern to agriculturists and environmentalists. I refer to the problem of desertification. In Iran we have been aware that our rangelands are grossly overstocked, that the grazing is deteriorating to a condition from which it might not recover, and that its productivity in the long term can only be restored by a destocking programme. My Government has started implementation of such a programme with due recognition of the socio-economic problems associated with the implementation of this policy.
Other programmes directed toward preservation and survival of natural resources are, sand dune fixation, watershed management, preservation of ecosystems and re-seeding of rangelands which are being successfully implemented and in many circumstances have served as model projects to various UN agencies including Food and Agriculture Organization.
The problem and its solution is not Iran's alone and there is already international cooperative effort in this direction. Iran will continue to support such cooperative endeavours. Realizing that the provision of adequate food supplies is a pressing need, Iran has gone beyond its territory to invest in the agricultural sector. Joint investment projects have been initiatiated in several parts of the world and assistance has been granted to other countries for the production of important agricultural inputs such as chemical fertilizers. My country, as you all will know, has also been a firm supporter and the second largest contributor to the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
Thus Iran has placed high priority on increasing food production within and outside its territory. The pursuance of this policy will, however, depend on our future financial resources and our economic development requirements.
I am confident that the developed countries, being members of our world community, are aware of the fact that continued shortage of basic human needs, such as foodstuffs, in other parts of this community will, in the long run, have adverse effects on their economies. We are of the opinion that the New International Economic Order will not materialize unless the developed economies accept a considerable share of the burden in solving the world food problem.
E. CAKAJDA (Czechoslovakia) (interpretation from Slovak): Let me, first of all, on behalf of the delegation of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, congratulate you, Mr. Chairman, and all vice-chairmen upon the election for highest functions in the directing bodies of the General Conference.
The Czechoslovak delegation believes that the development of the food production which is relatively favourable in comparison with the past, is also due to FAO's efforts, namely the various programmes which are being fulfilled along with the forms of bilateral cooperation and with the aid rendered by the economically advanced countries to the developing world.
The delegation of my country, therefore, essentially supports the main line of FAO's orientation to those member countries which need assistance most of all, particularly for the consolidation of the material and technical basis of their agriculture, for rational use of natural resources and for education of qualified and skilled cadres. This will undoubtedly be a further valuable contribution to their own agricultural production serving as the main source of their food security.
We believe that in the solution of many problems of agricultural development the close collaboration of agricultural organization with Trade Unions could be very useful.
My Government fully supports the justified requirements of the developing countries for a desirable adjustment of the international economic relations and for stabilizing the prices. We also support the requirement for an extension of developing countries share in the world trade in agricultural raw materials and foodstuffs and for their greater involvement in international division of labour.
Irrespective of our general and full consent to the draft plan of work and medium-term programmes, I would like to point out the specific position of the European region. I am aware of the more favourable situation in the agricultural and foodstuff production of Europe as a whole, as distinct from most of the other regions. I strongly believe that the working programmes of cooperation among advanced countries in further technological development of European agriculture, will rend the European countries able to sufficiently fulfil their mission in relation to the developing world.
I am glad to note that the plan of FAO's work as well as the medium-term programmes have been adjusted to incoporate the main issues ensuing for agriculture, foodstuff production, forestry and water management from the Concluding Document of the Helsinki Conference.
I propose that one of the nearest future European Regional FAO Conferences deal with the concrete results and further prospects of European cooperation- in the fields of land fund, water resources, environment protection, standardization, exchange of fellowships, study stays etc. As to the topical problems of the use and protection of land, I repeat our recommendation to discuss this matter in the nearest future.
The Czechoslovak delegation fully supports the effort of FAO and particularly its Director-General Dr. Edouard Saouma, for enhancing FAO's mission and for thorough division of work between our Organization and other authorities concerned in the nutrition of mankind.
At the same time, I point out the broad and active bilateral relations of Czechoslovakia with many countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America and our present as well as further possible involvement in programmes and projects of expertise, technical and technological character.
We welcome the fact that a conference on land reforms and rural development will be held in 1979. Czechoslovakia will take its active part in the preparatory work as well as in the conference with her own experience and findings gained in the establishment and development of socialist agricultural cooperatives, state farms and the whole system of agricultural services. I would like to say again, judging from our experience, that for effective development of agriculture in FAO member countries it
is not enough to deal just with the technical and technological tasks but that it is mainly necessary to solve the mentioned socio-economic problems, including the general position, planning and management of agriculture within the whole system of the national economy, as well as a just re-distribution of the national income.
About thirty years ago, Czechoslovakia faced similar tasks under her conditions, having to provide a sufficient quantity of good-quality food to cover the continously increasing consumption. Other socialist countries were in a similar situation at about the same time, and the Soviet Union sixty years ago, after the victory of the Great October Revolution. Having made radical socialist changes of our agriculture, we succeeded in reaching our economic and social aims within a relatively short period of history.
My delegation fully supports the dimensions and the structure of the programme of work as proposed to be accepted by the Conference. We agree also with the budget level proposed by the Director-General as logicaly corresponding to the programme of work.
As the Organization could face the difficulties in financing caused by an instability of the monetary exchange system, the idea to have a small limited reserve in the frame of FAO budget seems to be acceptable for us.
Now let me follow up with the main problems of the development of agriculture and foodstuff production in developing countries as included in the draft plan of work and in the medium-term programmes. I shall mention in brief how these problems are being solved in Czechoslovak agriculture.
Our intention is to achieve, in the nearest future, self-sufficiency in the production of cereals, and generally in all food of the moderate climatic zone. This effort, important for our country, complies with FAO's effort on the world scale. To make our intentions reality, we take various measures, including high interest in effective capital investments in Czechoslovak agriculture and processing industries.
In the mentioned period the capital has been mostly used for the development of crop production and grain fund management. The particular fields into which the capital has been invested are land improvement, construction of lines for post-harvest grain treatment, building of grain and potato stores, drying plants, fruit and vegetable production and handling facilities, including greenhouses for forced vegetables, establishment of agrochemical centres and development of machine-repairing centres. In animal production we have been mainly building cattle bousing premises, particularly calf sheds and cow sheds.
The objective of this and further development of the material and technical basis of Czechoslovak socialist agriculture is to finish the building-up of a highly productive and intensive agricultural great production, based on large-capacity principles of industrial type.
Our investment policy in agriculture is aimed to the minimalization of food losses during the whole processus of production, handling and processing, which are considered as a very important potential reserve for further raising and better quality of our agricultural food production.
We fully support the idea of the Director-General, that this problem may be approved as a high priority activity of this Organization.
In 1976 our agriculture suffered from extraordinary drought, whereas this year has been characterized, on the other hand, by extremely high atmospheric rainfall that rendered the harvest of cereals very difficult.
In comparison with the years 1975 and 1976, the total output of crop production was lower by 2. 7 per cent. Despite all this, the level of animal production has been kept unchanged.
This 1977 year's total grain output in spite of difficult harvesting conditions is the highest one in the whole history of the socialist economy.
Also the output of sugar-beet, potatoes, and bulk forage is a record this year.
The good results of Czechoslovak agriculture in the last two years, achieved in spite of the very unfavourable weather conditions which necessitated higher costs, are due to the advantages of the socialist system built-in agriculture, with a strong material and technical basis.
The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic closely cooperates with other socialist countries within the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. Besides the mentioned bilateral contacts with many developing countries, it is particularly in the recent years that, inspired by the conclusions of the Helsinki Conference, my country has evolved active and mutually advantageous cooperation with many West-European as well as overseas countries.
In conclusion, let me express my gratitude to the Director-General Dr. Saouma for accepting the official invitation by my Government to visit Czechoslovakia this year. Dr. Saouma met the President of Czechoslovakia, our Prime Minister and other high level representatives of the Czechoslovak Government. During their talks with the Director-General, the highest representatives of Czechoslovakia also expressed their understanding and support to the general line and strategy of FAO for the future period, as asserted by him.
He also could, at least in brief, familiarize himself with the present level and prospects of Czechoslovak agriculture and, generally, with our country.
In this connection I would like to reassure the Conference that the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic intends to continue to actively participate in FAO's work.
H. R. LLOMPART (Cuba): Señor Presidente, señores Delegados: En nombre de nuestra Delegación deseo agradecer al pueblo de Italia la cordial hospitalidad que se nos dispensa en esta nueva oportunidad en que Roma acoge tan importante evento, y congratular al señor Director General y sus colaboradores, por la excelente preparación de esta Conferencia.
Nos complace felicitar al Dr. Saouma por la Declaración hecha a esta Conferencia, y manifestar nuestro apoyo más decidido a sus esfuerzos encaminados a hacer de la FAO una organización dinámica y eficiente, que responda cada vez con más efectividad, a las imperiosas necesidades de los países subdesarrollados. En este objetivo encontrará siempre nuestro resuelto y firme apoyo.
Aprovechamos también para felicitar al Sr. Toyib Hadiwijaya por su elección como Presidente de este período de sesiones, a los integrantes de la Mesa, y a la Sra. Jean A. S, Ritchie y el Sr. Talât Ereil por haber recibido el Premio B. R. Sen.
Asimismo aprovechamos esta oportunidad, señor Presidente, para mencionar que Cuba en los años recientes ha sido beneficiada con un proyecto del Programa Mundial de Alimentos consistente en la entrega de leche en polvo y mantequilla, el cual es destinado al Sistema Educacional del País, incluyendo los hogares infantiles y que tiene una importancia significativa dado que cubre una etapa de déficit, dentro de los importante esfuerzos que realiza el país en el Desarrollo Ganadero y las instalaciones lecheras e industriales. Nuestro país se siente muy satisfecho con la forma y el alcance de este proyecto por la gran significación que tiene para nuestro desarrollo agropecuario.
Deseo reiterar el regocijo con que el Gobierno y el pueblo de Cuba acogen el ingreso a la FAO de la República Popular de Angola, del Estado de las Comores, de la República Democrática Popular de Corea, de la República Popular de Mozambique, de la República Democrática de Santo Tomé y Príncipe, del Gobierno de la República de Seychelles, el Consejo de las Naciones Unidas para Namibia y la República de Djibouti, recientemente liberados en su mayoría del yugo colonial.
Estos pueblos emergen a la independencia, después de decenas de años de despiadada explotación colonial durante los cuales no se formaron médicos, no se crearon escuelas, maestros ni sistemas de enseñanza y de salubridad.
Nos satisfacen los logros alcanzados por los hermanos del llamado Tercer Mundo en su lucha contra el colonialismo, el neocolonialismo y el imperialismo, en beneficio de sus pueblos, y reiteramos que Cuba se mantendrá siempre solidaria e internacionalista con la lucha revolucionaria por la emancipación de todos los pueblos que luchen en el mundo por su independencia definitiva.
El número de seres humanos azotados por el hambre y la malnutrición pueden variar de una a otra Conferencia, pero el orden de magnitud siempre es de varios centenares de millones. El volumen de las producciones agrícolas y de alimentos varía también, pero aunque lo hagan en sentido positivo, las terribles consecuencias de una alimentación insuficiente y una distribución no equitativa aún se mantienen presentes para la mayoría de la humanidad.
Y esto se nos presenta en un mundo de abundancia aparente, donde deben ser de general preocupación las dramáticas consecuencias que tendría la dilapidación de los recursos naturales a que se dedican una cuantas "sociedades opulentas" en las cuales, paradójicamente, no deja de existir también el hambre. Pero el punto crítico no se encuentra en estas sociedades. La casi totalidad de los 500 millones de habitantes azotados por la falta de alimentos se encuentran en Asia, Africa o la América Latina.
El hecho de que esta vasta zona del mundo padezca del hambre en una proporción tan asoladora, no se debe a circunstancias de ubicación geográfica ni a características raciales de sus pueblos. Es un hecho que se deriva de la historia: es una consecuencia del subdesarrollo, impuesto a esos pueblos por el colonialismo y el imperialismo.
Con estos pueblos han contraído una deuda incalculable las metrópolis coloniales y neocoloniales que se beneficiaron de su explotación. Nuestro país considera que es una obligación para los países capitalistas desarrollados culpables del despojo de los países por tan largo tiempo expoliados, restituirles los recursos que les han sido sustraíaos, a través de adecuados finanelamentos para su desarrollo.
No obstante, la experiencia nos dice que eso no sería suficiente. Los países en desarrollo tendrán que realizar profundas reformas en la estructura social sobre todo en lo que respecta a la tenencia de la tierra, que rompa los obstáculos de latifundio improductivo y resuelva las limitaciones del minifundio destinado a una autosuficiencia familiar precaria.
Señor Presidente: Esta Conferencia se celebra a casi tres años antes de terminar el "Segundo Decenio de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo". Es por ello oportuno revisar y evaluar los logros alcanzados hasta el momento desde la pasada Conferencia. Una vez más el cuadro que se nos ofrece es desalentador. Los estudios y documentos preparados por la Secretaría para esta Conferencia así lo demuestran.
En el informe de FAO sobre la situación de la agricultura y la alimentación se expresa que durante 1976 se produjo una notable mejora en la situación inmediata de la alimentación y la agricultura mundiales, pero que la tendencia de la producción alimentaria a largo plazo de los países en desarrollo continúa siendo lamentablemente insuficiente en relación con la necesidad de mejorar los niveles de nutrición.
A pesar de las buenas cosechas obtenidas por los países en desarrollo en 1975, su producción alimentaria sólo aumentó en un 2, 5 por ciento anual durante la primera mitad del presente decenio, siendo esta cifra inferior al índice anual de crecimiento de la población en esos países, y muy inferior al 4 por ciento anual, objetivo trazado en la Estrategia Internacional para el Desarrollo adoptada para el Segundo Decenio por las Naciones Unidas.
Los promedios nacionales del consumo de alimentos y nutrición en los países en desarrollo no sólo muestran de por sí una situación extremadamente trágica, sino que ofrecen una indicación global del desastroso estado nutricional que padecen y ocultan la conocida y muy desigual distribución del consumo de alimentos dentro de cada país, a lo que se une que los índices de precios de los alimentos al consumidor continuaron siendo altos en 1976 y al parecer tienden a continuar su alza en la actualidad.
Por otra parte, los ingresos recibidos por exportaciones agropecuarias por los países en desarrollo han sido significativamente menores en relación con sus necesidades. El incremento total entre 1975 y 1974, ascendente a 1071 millones de dólares por este concepto en el plano mundial se explica por un aumento de 1594 millones de dólares de las exportaciones procedentes de las economías de mercado desarrolladas y por una disminución de 299 millones de dólares en las economías de mercado en desarrollo y 224 millones de las economías de planificación centralizada. En síntesis, un comportamiento totalmente inverso al justamente esperado por los países subdesarrollados.
En el informe que comentamos esta situación se hace más evidente en el continente africano, zona realmente crítica, ya que el incremento de la producción alimentaria fue sólo del 0, 5 por ciento en los años 1971-1975, y el índice por persona bajó en un 2, 1 por ciento al año en igual período.
No contribuye a mejorar esta situación la posición adoptada por algunos países capitalistas desarrollados que se proponen reducir sus áreas de siembra hasta un 20 por ciento. El objetivo velado de esta medida es mantener altos niveles de precios. Estamos seguros de que la Comunidad Internacional vería con agrado que se mantengan sembradas esas tierras con niveles de productividad más altos, y así lograr precios más adecuados.
Eliminar esta medida, y suprimir además la política de subsidios y trabas arancelarias que aplican algunos países capitalistas desarrollados, sería una contribución efectiva para evitar el encarecimiento de los productos alimenticios
El señor Director General, en su Declaración ante el Comité de Políticas y Programas del PMA expreso: "El problema de la malnutrición en los países pobres es tan urgente que no puede esperar a la conse-cusión de un nivel satisfactorio de crecimiento económico. Descuidar la nutrición significaría retrasar el desarrollo económico por un período crítico y quizás indefinido''.
Nuestro país comparte estas preocupaciones y respalda plenamente las recomendaciones y medidas que se propongan para atenuar la trágica situación descrita. Respaldamos el objetivo propuesto por el Programa Mundial de Alimentos de obtener 950 millones de dolares en promesas de contribución, que en realidad es un objetivo modesto si se toman en consideración las necesidades reales de los países más necesitados.
La situación en el Sector agrícola y de alimentos no es más que un reflejo del acentuamiento de la brecha existente entre países desarrollados y países en desarrollo, resultado del continuado deterioro en los términos de intercambio y los crecientes efectos de la inflación y la recesión de los países capitalistas desarrollados y de su arbitrario sistema monetario internacional.
Los precios de las mercancías provenientes de los países desarrollados siguen en un constante aumento, sin embargo, el precio de las exportaciones de los países subdesarrollados disminuyen, o no logran crecer en la misma proporción.
Consideramos de imperiosa necesidad el establecimiento de convenios o acuerdos de productos básicos para los productos agrícolas, que sirvan de instrumentos reguladores, facilitando así una participación más justa de los países en desarrollo en el comercio internacional.
Las raíces históricas del colonialismo, primero, y el imperialismo económico, después, han quebrado los mecanismos sociales en los países en desarrollo, pero no por trasplantar allí los progresos de Europa o, más tarde, las ventajas del crecimiento económico norteamericano sino para convertirlos en países productores de materias primas, saqueándoles sus recursos naturales, imponiéndoles regímenes opresores que utilizaban en su provecho, cortando el progreso cultural y condenando a esos pueblos al analfabetismo y al atraso perennes.
A pesar de las reiteradas discusiones sobre estos temas, los países capitalistas desarrollados no han adoptado acciones que contribuyan a eliminar esta situación. La Conferencia sobre Cooperación Económica internacional demostró lo inflexible de sus posiciones indicando a las claras no estar dispuestos a renunciar a las prebendas y beneficios que secularmente han disfrutado. La reunión de Ministros de Relaciones Exteriores del Grupo de los 77 - celebrada en septiembre pasado - arribó a similares conclusiones.
Sin embargo, a los países en desarrollo nos confirmó la necesidad de mantener la unidad y ratificar el criterio de que el Sistema de las Naciones Unidas es un órgano apropiado y representativo para ejercicios de ese carácter. Es por ello, señor Presidente, que nuestra delegación apoya los criterios conducentes a lograr relaciones económicas internacionales basadas en la justicia y la equidad, la no discriminación por motivo de diferentes sistemas económicos y sociales, el interés mutuo y'la cooperación entre los Estados, considerando como base de nuestros trabajos la Declaración del Programa de Acción adoptado en el Sexto Período Extraordinario de Sesiones de la Asamblea General y la Carta de los Derechos y Deberes Económicos de los Estados.
La base de nuestros desarrollo descansa en muy buena parte en nuestros propios esfuerzos, pero no es menos cierto que es necesario recurrir a la cooperación y colaboración internacional, en especial entre nuestros propios países, y que los países capitalistas desarrollados cumplan con sus obligaciones internacionales facilitando el que se resuelva el grave problema de la deuda externa de los países subdesarrollados y que se eliminen las limitaciones de acceso a los mercados de los países capitalistas desarrollados estableciendo condiciones favorables y justas.
En momentos en que el imperialismo ha orquestado una campaña propagandística tendente a presentarse como defensor de los derechos humanos, situaciones y datos como los que hemos citado son la más profunda negativa a sus pretensiones, ya que los mismos demuestran que el imperialismo y su despiadado sistema colonial y neocolonial representan en su esencia, la más absoluta negación de esos derechos para los pueblos.
No pueden hablar de derechos humanos, Sr. Presidente, los responsables de que hombres, mujeres y niños de los países pobres no gocen de los más elementales derechos, como es el de la alimentación indispensable y el acceso a la educación, la salud pública y a disfrutar por lo menos de unas bases mínimas para el desarrollo humano.
La solución de estos graves problemas requieren medidas concretas por parte de los países capitalistas desarrollados para solucionar la situación financiera y de acceso al comercio internacional que padecen los países pobres, para que así puedan comenzar a sentar bases sólidas que le permitan resolver estos problemas en forma estable y con visión perspectiva.
Al calor de estos reclamos y de la trágica situación que atraviesan nuestros países, se levantan voces, unas con ingenuidad y otras procurando soslayar el fondo del problema, ofreciendo ayudas humanitarias que resultan insuficientes, tales como ejércitos de voluntarios de cuyas actividades no tenemos las mejores experiencias, o procurando imponernos modelos de desarrollo agrícola basados en la imagen idílica del granjero individualista de país desarrollado, que no puede constituir en modo alguno una alternativa de solución para nuestros graves problemas.
Nuestro país ha continuado avanzando en el desarrollo del sector agrícola y alimentario, aun dentro de las condiciones adversas de bloqueo económico que le han sido impuestas a lo largo de casi dos décadas. Esto ha sido posible por el sacrificio y esfuerzo de nuestro pueblo, y por la ayuda solidaria de los países de la comunidad socialista, en particular la Unión Soviética. Aprovechamos para saludar el 60 Aniversario de la Gran Revolución de Octubre que ha hecho posible que muchos países que luchan por la liberación, entre ellos el nuestro, hayan comenzado unos, y otros consolidado, su verdadera independencia y soberanía.
Hemos avanzado en la organización de la economía agrícola, en consecuencia con los profundos cambios de índole social que han caracterizado los casi 19 años de la vida de la Revolución Cubana, partiendo de la Reforma Agraria como punto inicial e indispensable para el cambio de la estructuras en el Sector Agropecuario.
La creación de comunidades rurales con las necesarias facilidades sociales -tales como edificios de viviendas decorosas, escuelas, postas médicas, campos deportivos, etc. -, no solamente han modificado el paisaje de los campos cubanos y elevado sustancialmente el nivel de vida intelectual y material del campesino, sino que también han permitido niveles superiores de producción agropecuaria con una mayor eficiencia y productividad.
Paralelamente al desarrollo del Sector estatal se organizan, impulsan y perfeccionan las cooperativas de producción agropecuaria con aquellos campesinos que, dueños de sus tierras, piden costituirlas o incorporarse a las ya existentes, para participar así en formas superiores de producción agropecuaria.
Otro aspecto de no menor importancia y que ha influido de manera determinante y definitiva en la realidad de la agricultura cubana, lo constituye la combinación del estudio con el trabajo en los distintos niveles del sistema educacional. Este principio encuentra sus raíces en los postulados del procer de nuestra Independencia José Martí, sustentados además, al iniciarse la construcción del Socialismo, en las ideas para la formación de las nuevas generaciones, que sentó Carlos Marx en sus geniales concepciones.
Por otra parte, al desarrollo agropecuario se dedican cada año considerables recursos para la adquisición de tractores, combinadas para la cosecha mecanizada de la caña de azúcar, del arroz y otros cultivos; la construcción sistemática de modernas vaquerías con ordeño mecánico; modernas construcciones avícolas y porcinas; instalaciones o talleres para la reparación y atención de la maquinaria agrícola; modernos y complejos sistemas hidráulicos, etc.
Uno de los más importantes esfuerzos en mecanización agrícola es la puesta en marcha de la fábrica de cosechadoras cañeras Modelo KTP-1 con una capacidad anual de producción de 600 unidades, base fundamental para alcanzar en 1980 una mecanización superior a un 55 por ciento de la cosecha de caña de azúcar.
Asimismo se destaca la creación y desarrollo de institutos de investigaciones para la mecanización agrícola en general, para suelos y fertilizantes, sanidad vegetal, sanidad animal, pastos y forrajes, riego y drenaje, pesca, forestales, etc. que constituyen premisas, en la infraestructura, fundamentales para nuestro desarrollo actual y futuro.
Señor Presidente, los esfuerzos cubanos parcialmente expuestos en apretada síntesis, significan resultados positivos para nuestro sector agrícola y alimentario. En caña de azúcar, nuestro principal cultivo, se logró superar la producción del bienio anterior en 12 por ciento.
En producciones importantes para la dieta del pueblo cubano se alcanzaron en el mismo período incrementos sustanciales. En carne vacuna durante 1976 se produjeron 47 000 t más que en 1975; mientras que en carne de cerdo el incremento fue de un 70 por ciento y en carne de ave de un 91 por ciento con relación a la producción del bienio 1973-1974. La producción de huevos del pasado año aseguró un consumo anual per capita de 180 unidades sobrepasando la producción la cifra de 1800 millones de huevos.
Si comparamos los resultados obtenidos durante 1976 con relación al año que le precede vemos cómo el arroz sobrepasa el rendimiento por ha en un 21 por ciento, y en tubérculos y raíces, hortalizas, tabaco y banano en un 16 por ciento.
En el nivel de capturas de pesca cubanas el pasado año se obtuvieron alrededor de 200 000 toneladas esperando que en 1977 nuestras capturas asciendan a las 230 000 toneladas, lo que significa una gran diferencia con lo capturado en 1958, que. fue solamente de 21 000 toneladas. El consumo per capita en 1974 fue de 20, 3 Kg.
El ritmo de desarrollo de la industria pesquera cubana ha permitido que se esté trabajando actualmente en el montaje de una planta conservera que procesará alrededor de 50 000 toneladas anuales de productos del mar.
Otra área de especial atención por parte del Gobierno cubano es la forestal, donde durante 1976 y lo transcurrido en el presente año se han reforestado 44 000 ha y manejado 104 viveros forestales, entre otras actividades.
No quisiéramos terminar, señor Presidente y señores Delegados, sin expresar el apoyo de nuestro Gobierno a la celebración de la Conferencia Mundial sobre Reforma Agraria y Desarrollo Rural, que se celebrará en 1979.
No cabe duda de que esta Conferencia significará un paso adelante en la consecución de nuestros objetivos respecto a la Conferencia celebrada en 1966. Por esa razón estimamos que este nuevo encuentro de carácter mundial irá orientado, no sólo hacia los aspectos técnicos de la agricultura, sino primor-dialmente dirigida hacia aquellos problemas de carácter socio-económico, que son la base para la imple-. mentación de una verdadera y profunda Reforma Agraria en los países en desarrollo.
Dada la trascendencia y la importancia que tiene para los países subdesarrollados, deberá disponer de los recursos financieros necesarios para su celebración. En este sentido apoyamos la propuesta de presupuesto presentada por el Director General para poderla llevar adelante con el objetivo propuesto.
Nuestro país viene prestando atención especial a los ρronunciamentos que sobre Cooperación Técnica entre países en desarrollo se están formulando en las Naciones Unidas y organismos como FAO. Cuba desde hace varios años viene desarrollando la prestación de asistencia técnica y la colaboración mediante convenios y proyectos con los países en desarrollo, a pesar del bloqueo económico que aún se nos mantiene. Pese al mismo, Cuba realiza un modesto pero importante esfuerzo enviando médicos, maestros, técnicos agrícolas y brigadas constructoras a los países subdesarrollados que lo han solicitado.
A fines del presente año más de 6 000 técnicos y profesionales cubanos estarán prestando sus servicios de asistencia técnica en países en vía de desarrollo, fundamentalmente en el continente africano, de los cuales 700 son médicos.
Esto sólo como un ejemplo y comprende un modesto aporte de nuestro país a la solidaridad y cooperación internacional dentro de nuestros limitados recursos.
Actualmente, también nuestro país está prestando esta asistencia técnica a través de organismos especializados de las Naciones Unidas. La cooperación técnica y colaboración entre nuestros países constituye en sí misma una acción de defensa de nuestros intereses.
Señor Presidente: Los países capitalista desarrollados, responsables de las políticas coloniales y neo-coloniales, han mantenido y mantienen las relaciones económicas internacionales más injustas y desiguales y contribuyen a que el panorama de producción agrícola y la situación alimentaria en los países subdesarrollados, sea terriblemente desalentador.
Como contraste, y según ha expresado nuestro Presidente del Consejo de Estado, Comandante Fidel Castro: ''Si las revoluciones tienen muchas flores hermosas, la flor de la solidaridad humana, de la capacidad de sacrificarse por los demás - en su patria y aun fuera de su patria - es la más hermosa".
''Nuestra pregunta. . . y la pregunta que tenemos que hacernos todos los hombres progresistas del mundo es ésta: ¿Cómo debemos trabajar y cómo se van a resolver los problemas del mundo subdesarrollado?''.
Ese es el gran desafío al que tiene que responder urgentemente y en forma positiva la comunidad internacional.
J. GIBBONS (Ireland): I should like to join all those speakers who have preceded me, in congratulating you sincerely on your election as Chairman of the Conference. I am confident that in your capable hands, the Conference will succeed once again in advancing still further the growing level of cooperation and understanding that has been stimulated at previous Conferences. I have no doubt that the Conference will also make further progress towards solution of the ever complex problems that confront all of us who are concerned with agriculture and with food production.
I wish also to welcome the 8 new members who have been admitted into the Organization.
My colleague, Mr. Humblet has already addressed you on behalf of the European Community and has dealt very fully with the Community's own work in this field both internally and in relation to developing countries. I have no hesitation in declaring my own and my Government's support for the Community's work for developing countries. I fully endorse his view that we all have a common purpose and that jointly we will get the results.
The main theme for your Conference is Investment in Agriculture. This subject was rightly given pride of place by the new Director-General when he placed before the Council for the first time his proposals for a new approach by the Organization.
In doing so he was, no doubt, directing our attention to the very heart of the problem of developing food production. This is in keeping too with his determination to concentrate the work of FAO on programmes for direct action in priority areas. I wish to add my tribute to the many that have already been paid to him for his efforts since taking office. Definitions of what we mean by investment can vary a great deal. Broadly, however, the ingredients of any investment programme for agriculture will be much the same. They will probably include capital for the erection of buildings; for fertilization and other forms of land improvement; for the development of livestock and crop varieties; for research and development; for education and training of farmers; for providing extension services; and for control and eradication of diseases of animals and plants. Almost every single aspect of agricultural development calls for investment in one form or another.
Because investment is such a vital lubricant in the process of development it is entirely understandable, that all Governments, in developed as well as in developing countries, share a common concern to ensure that adequate capital is available for injection into agriculture.
Of course, not all Governments will have the same priorities. For the more developed countries, the ambition is likely to be to create the climate of confidence and stability in which farmers will be able to sustain a buoyant level of investment that will ensure the progressive development and adaptation of the farming industry. For less developed countries, the starting point will be entirely different. Their problem may well be to provide motivation to stimulate their human resources towards development and to select priorities from the limited options open to them.
It is usually the case that agriculture is in the process of development simultaneously with most other sectors of the economy. For this reason, it is usual to find many demands competing for the limited funds available. I think it is true to say that few Ministers for Agriculture are ever satisfied with what is made available for investment in agriculture. In the developing countries, Agriculture Ministers have the full backing of the World Food Conference in seeking absolute priority for what they need and it is to be hoped that this priority is being readily accorded by their Governments. Most of us, on the other hand, are usually faced with difficult decisions as to who gets what and how much.
When we are faced with the problem of distributing scarce resources, we must seek to direct funds to where they will be used to the best advantage. This leads to consideration of many different aspects of the development process. There is little to be gained from concentrating investment in physical areas such as land, buildings and machinery if the farmer himself is not equipped to use these productively. The first thing necessary, clearly, is that the farmer should be free from the threat of hunger. If he labours under the shadow of hunger, then his capacity to help himself is destroyed. Secondly the farmer must have the knowledge, the education and training that will enable him to use the physical things that can be put at his disposal. Investment directed towards providing the necessary education and training must, therefore, usually get first priority. It may be difficult even for those who have been given the necessary training to make the initial effort to help themselves. Other conditions must be met. The farmer must be offered the secure prospect of a sustained level of income for his effort. He will usually look to his Government also for assurances of political, economic and monetary stability in the years ahead. Many of us will have seen, in recent times, the damaging effect which severe inflation can have on attitudes towards investment. A prospect of reasonable stability in prices and markets will add greatly to the confidence of producers and will ease the flow of capital from credit agencies and other institutions.
Problems of land structure are, I know, a constant concern of FAO and I am pleased to note that in cooperation with several other world bodies, it is planning a major World Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development in 1979. That Conference will offer a forum for discussion on all aspects of land tenure and related problems. It should provide very valuable guidance on ways and means of giving the underprivileged access to productive resources and enabling them to use those resources to advantage. It is good that FAO should continue to seek to influence policies in important areas of this kind.
It is important to take account of the interplay of factors that influence the farmers' decision to invest and his ability to use his investment wisely. Credit is a case in point. I noted that the importance of proper credit facilities in providing a flow of capital, especially for smaller farmers, was quite properly recognized fully in the second of the guidelines for food and agricultural production endorsed by the 18th Session of Conference in 1975.
In the case of small and less developed farms, provision of credit must normally be integrated with many other services. Apart from the first essential of being sure of an adequate return, the farmer must have access also to the productive technology emerging from research and development institutions. He should be able too to call on a virile extension service that can be called on to translate technology into practice and which will give him the management ability to ensure his capacity to repay. After all, the ability to manage his investment well, is the best collateral any farmer can present to any lending agency. And so, all elements of the investment process react one upon the other -the farmer's own input in land and management, the funds from lending agencies and the help which his Government; can give in providing the finance for research, education, training and the operation of farm extension services.
In the case of developing countries of course, individual consideration will arise. Special measures have to be taken to ensure that the investment of precious resources in agriculture and particularly in the field of manpower should be channelled in the most effective way. In this connection, my Government endorses the intensive work being done in many developing countries in the field of the cooperative development. This work embraces policy guidance, the setting up of cooperative development centres, assistance with regional training and advisory services and cooperative education and training. I have already made reference to smaller farms. When we talk about investment in agriculture, it is essentially those small farmers and the agricultural labourers who have virtually no resources that we want to reach. One of the best ways of giving these the hope of sharing adequately in the investment in agriculture which is so necessary, is cooperation - for credit, for housing, for development of crafts and other employment opportunities and even for education. I must stress the vital need to involve the subsistence farmer arid the landless man in the production of the additional food we require. If these weaker groups are not involved, then additional production may give rise to almost as many problems as it would solve. Without resources, these people could not buy any of the extra food produced and would remain dependent on outside help indefinitely.
I am a firm believer in the value of cooperative action for smaller farmers - especially as a means of making the best use of scarce investment resources. Cooperation at this level can range from a simple exchange of labour or the pooling of machinery to complete integration of farming activity. A simple sharing of machinery and buildings can bring modern equipment within reach of the smallest producer when it would otherwise be denied to him.
A more rational use of machinery is also possible where services are provided by farm contractors. Contracting services have expanded in many countries including my own in recent decades. These services are again most valuable where the farm structure is one of small family size farms. In these conditions contractors perform a most valuable function. They put modern techniques within reach of all farmers and in the process save many farmers from dissipating resources in uneconomic investments in equipment.
Looking at cooperation; in a wider context - let me say that my Government readily acknowledges the serious responsibility of the developed countries to help those developing countries in the provision of funds and other inputs for development of agriculture but care must be taken not to undermine the responsiblity which the Governments of developing countries have accepted to provide, out of their own resources, as much of the essential financial and institutional help as they can to enable farmers to produce more.
I was interested to read the recommendation of the World Food Council at its third meeting in Manila in June of this year in regard to Food Aid. It recommended that Food Aid policies should be applied in a manner consistent with the development objectives of the recipient country. It went on to say
that existing and potential donors of Food Aid should give special consideration to increasing the amount of Food Aid provided multilaterally. It expected also that donors would endeavour to provide food aid, wherever possible, through cash resources in the form of triangular arrangements between themselves, developing food exporting countries and recipient countries. My country strongly supports this recommendation and has done so at the meeting of the Committee on Food Aid Policies and Programmes. I would also like to pick out the Council's reference to potential donors of food aid and to say that I share the hope expressed by the Committee on Food Aid Policies and Programmes last month that new donors to the World Food Programme will come forward in the near future and help to share the burden being carried by the existing donors. This would make realistic and practicable the achievement of the substantial new target of 950 million dollars which has been recommended by the Committee and which has been considered by this Conference.
Mr. Chairman, I must come back to the subject of investment. I should like to refer briefly to the problem of post-harvest losses. Like many other countries, Ireland has just experienced a bountiful grain harvest and I am therefore conscious just now of the importance of having the facilities for proper treatment and storage of grain. Many speakers have already referred to the perennial problem of the large quantities of food that are lost in many developing countries between field and consumer. It has been said that if all waste and spoilage could, by some miracle, be eliminated, present food production would be adequate. This is a sobering thought. It would surely be tragic if the efforts which have gone into improving production and increasing yields were to be dissipated by continuing losses on the present scale. It is perhaps no harm to remind ourselves that this is an area where investment in the control of diseases and pests and provision of better storage would pay handsome dividends. The programme which FAO is now proposing for tackling this problem is most commendable and deserves to succeed.
I have read with particular interest the report prepared for this Conference on progress towards achieving the agreed objectives and policies of the international agricultural adjustment. Solid progress has been made in a number of the areas covered by the guidelines formulated by Conference in 1975. The progress is more marked in some areas than in others. But even where significant advances have been made, so much remains to be done that there will be no suggestion of being satisfied with the results achieved. To be satisfied would imply complacency. We know only too well that the vastness of the task which confronts FAO will never allow for any measure of complacency until all those people in the world who are facing hunger and malnutrition can be offered something more tangible than sympathy and understanding.
In acknowledging the progress that has been achieved, I think it right to give recognition to the valuabJe contributions which have been made by the Consultative Group on Food Production and Investment. The establishment now of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) will add new impetus for development. Investment is but one of the essential ingredients needed for the development of food and agricultural production but it is a key one. It is essential not only to make sure of sufficient provision of the farmers needs for fertilizers, feed and equipment but also to develop those industries which process farm products, and which in turn are capable of offering valuable employment in rural areas.
We must look on investments as an integral feature of the development of agriculture. The linkage with education, training, advisory work, research, marketing and pricing is as important as the investment decision itself. I believe that we can make these links even more secure and that this is the direction we should seek to travel in the future. In this way, we can offer developing countries the right package of assistance measures to help meet their particular needs. It only remains for me, Mr. Chairman, to offer my country's and my own good wishes for a successful Conference and to assure you of my Government's earnest support for the efforts of FAO in relation to the food and agricultural problems of the world.
S. M. AL-RAGABANI (United Arab Emirates) (interpretation from Arabic): In the name of God the merciful it is a pleasure for me to congratulate you upon your election as Chairman of this Conference. I should also like to congratulate the Vice-Chairman of this Conference. I am convinced that you will stint no efforts for the success of this Conference which we all consider being one of the main advantages of agricultural history of the contemporary world. We are participating in the Conference because we beleive in the important constructive role which the Organization has played since its creation in the development and improvement of agricultural production and food production throughout the world. However, we continue to hope that our Organization will achieve more important work and more considerable efforts in the framework of international cooperation with a view to ensuring greater food security for the peoples of the world, and particularly for those developing countries who are suffering from great food deficits. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Director-General of FAO for the efforts which he has deployed hitherto in the field of coordination and crystalization of the strategy of food security and agricultural development.
In the light of the directives of His Highness Sheik Zahid Iban Sultan an Hian The State of the United Arab Emirates has with a view to adopting food security adopted ambitious projects for food and fisheries in order to insert our agriculture in the process of development at the same time as the development of the other sectors of the colony. And this despite the scarcity of water and lack of skilled labour. The difficulties faced are numerous as compared to agricultural development. Nevertheless the surface of land cultivated has gone from 4 000 hectares in 1968 to a figure of almost 60 000 hectares in 1977, if you include forestry projects. The essential crops are those of basic commodities, whereas the cereal crops are being experimented at this stage.
In 1977 the production of vegetable crops - 52 000 dates, 53 000 citrus and a rather higher figure of fisheries. This part along with fodder, the volumes of the investments of the different governments and different projects of agriculture and animal health achieved a figure of $ 30 million distributed over projects of mechanization, the installation of irrigation pumps, motorization of fisheries mechanisms, acquiring of machines and tractors with a view to achieving the goals of the integrated development plan and to strengthen our self-sufficiency in the field of agriculture, animal and fisheries products.
Since the creation of the State of the United Arab Emirates in 1972 and up to 1977 the global investments in the agriculture and fishery products have achieved $-72 million. Other institutes for financing have been set up such as the Development of the Bank of the United Arab Emirates which offers facilities in the form of credit to farmers and fishermen for important projects. Other private important enterprises were created in the sectors of agriculture, cattle grazing and livestock and fisheries.
I would like to take this opportunity to emphasize the importance of water in agriculture. Water being the essential, for the sort of agricultural development and the very basis of the different agricultural plans and economic plans. Our State draws particular attention to it in view of the scarcity of water and the difficulty which arises thereform.
Beginning in 1978 two big projects will be under way. A project for a census of aquatic resources and exploitable lands, and a project of dams to be built on the rivers to reserve rainwater.
On the basis of the international principle that all countries aspiring to peace have adopted the United Arab Republic under the aegis of his Highness Sheik Zahid Iban Sultan an Hiam has stinted no effort when faced with the difficulties of brother countries to develop their natural resources. Thus our State participates in all funds and institutions which are for assistance to these countries for the achievement of their development projects.
Also we have created the Abu Dhabi plan of economic development, for this very same reason.
Our State, having faith in the need for regional cooperation among the countries of our area, participates in the various regional projects and has many meetings, the aim of which is to coordinate all plans and programmes for development. We also participate in the activities of the other international regional organizations, whether they belong to the United Nations or not.
The FAO has begun the preparation of the World Conference on Agrarian Relform and Rural Development which is to meet in July, 1978. We place great hopes in that Conference which will not doubt play a vital part in the exchange of viewpoints and which will be one of the most important conferences, since it will be referring to the very roots of the problem - land being the source and the basis of everything. We hope the Conference will be a stimulus for the aims and policies and work programme of the developing countries by affording priority to the projects aimed at ensuring food security, particularly in least-developed countries.
IFAD, which is about to become fact, also constitutes one of the financing sources for food production, their strengthening and their enhancement. In order to strengthen policies, institutions working within the framework with priority for national strategies should be borne in mind.
The new policy adopted by your great Organization has created country offices which will certainly strengthen direct contacts between the Member States and the organizations. Whilst supporting the system of country representatives, we nevertheless prefer the possibility of linking them up to the regional offices, bearing in mind the concern of decentralizing and increasing the efficiency of those • which have great experience in regional matters for the different regions.
The State of the United Arab Emirates still expects greater cooperation between FAO and the developing countries, because the latter have the greatest need for the expert knowledge of your Organization. That is why we would like an increase of funds for technical assistance programmes.
Before I come to the end of my statement I should like to congratulate the States which have just joined our Organization and who will, I hope, play an active role in our international community. We also hope the Organization will furnish them with all the assistance they need.
I thank and congratulate all those who participated in the preparation of this international Conference, which I hope will meet with full success in the adoption of resolutions and recommendations which we all wish for in the agricultural field. May God help us to achieve our aspirations towards increased production and greater prosperity for the good of all mankind, and may His mercy be upon all of you.
S. COULIBALY (Mali): C'est pour moi, Monsieur le President, un agréable devoir de vous adresser les vives félicitations de ma délégation à la suite de votre élection à la présidence de notre Conférence. En adressant également mes félicitations aux Vice-Présidents qui sont vos collaborateurs, je voudrais vous assurer de notre soutien dans l'accomplissement de vos délicates fonctions, étant assuré que vous dirigerez nos délibérations avec compétence et dévouement.
L'intérêt que mon gouvernement porte à la réalisation des objectifs de la FAO est à la dimension de la place primordiale que l'agriculture et les activités connexes occupent dans l'économie de mon pays.
En effet, la République du Mali est un pays sahélien n'ayant aucun accès direct à la mer et où aucune richesse du sous-sol n'est encore en exploitation sous forme d'échanges commerciaux au plan international.
C'est dire que toutes les activités qui concourent à la constitution du revenu national brut sont dans mon pays directement liées aux résultats de l'agriculture, de l'élevage et de la peche fluviale.
S'étendant sur un territoire de 1. 200. 000 km2, désertique au Nord et à l'Est, et arrosé à l'ouest et au centre par deux grands fleuves, le Niger et le Sénégal et leurs affluents, le-Mali, qui possède de grandes superficies de terre propices à l'agriculture et à l'élevage, est un des pays en voie de développement où les activités de notre Organisation trouvent la plénitude de leur motivation.
Aussi, tirant les enseignements de la période de domination coloniale et des premières années de l'exercice de la. souveraineté nationale, notre gouvernement, durement éprouvé par la longue sécheresse de 1970 à 1973, a mis en place le plan de développement quinquennal 1974-1978 axé essentiellement sur le développement rural intégré. C'est dire que l'orientation nouvelle de la BIRD sous l'impulsion de son dynamique Président, M. MacNamara, en faveur des investissements dans le secteur agricole des pays du Tiers Monde rejoint les préoccupations fondamentales de mon gouvernement.
Une certaine conspiration et de faux préjugés avaient en effet longtemps masqué les réalités de l'agriculture, notamment le développement des cultures vivrières dans les pays en voie de développement. Nous nous réjouissons donc de constater que des voix ayant une grande audience internationale s'élèvent aujourd'hui pour affirmer avec autorité et conviction que le retard de l'agriculture dans nos pays, et singulièrement celui des cultures céréalières, est dû essentiellement à l'insuffisance des capitaux.
Pour notre part, nous restons profondément convaincus que beaucoup de pays en voie de développement qui connaissent aujourd'hui de graves déficits céréaliers pourraient atteindre rapidement le stade de l'autosuffisance alimentaire au niveau national et régional si la communauté des pays nantis accordait une grande priorité aux investissements dans le secteur agricole en soutenant, en particulier, les projets de productions céréalières dans les pays concernés.
L'expérience que nous avons entreprise dans notre pays, bien qu'encore récente, nous renforce dans notre conviction.
En effet, près de 20 opérations de développement rural intégré financées conjointement sur ressources internes et externes ont été progressivement implantées dans mon pays à partir de 1972. Les opérations de développement rural sont des structures destinées à accélérer le développement intégré d'une région donnée et assurer la promotion économique et sociale des populations rurales. Elles sont conçues pour une production principale donnée dans une zone écologique déterminée tout en maintenant un équilibre satisfaisant entre cultures industrielles et cultures vivrières. Elles comportent des composantes couvrant l'encadrement de toutes, les activités de production des populations rurales fondées sur la propriété privée des exploitations et dès biens de production. Les activités des ODR couvrent en effet les aménagements hydroagricoles, la vulgarisation des variétés sélectionnées, la formation des paysans, l'alphabétisation des adultes, la santé humaine et animale, le créclit agricole, l'approvisionnement en matériel agricole, en engrais, en insecticide, l'entretien des pistes agricoles, le stockage des produits, etc. Comme on peut le constater, iious avons opté pour une stratégie de développement intégré dont les populations rurales sont les principaux bénéficiaires. Cette stratégie tient compte en effet des modestes ressources de l'Etat, et surtout du niveau d'éducation des paysans, de leurs moyens limités et de leurs profondes aspirations plus équitable que la stratégie de croissance systématique qui masque souvent de graves inégalités et des formes avancées d'exploitation de certaines couches sociales, notre système de développement rural intégré a rencontré l'adhésion des populations paysannes.
En effet, grâce à cette approche, la production de coton commercialisé, par exemple, qui était à la fois marginale et stationnaire^a atteint·85. 000 T au cours de la campagne agricole 1974/1975, 103. 000 T pour la campagne 1975/1976 et 119. 000 T pour la campagne 1976/1977. Au cours de la même période - notamment au cours des campagnes agricoles 1975/1976 et 1976/1977 où la pluviométrie a été bien répartie, bien qu'inférieure à la normale, la production céréalière a couvert la totalité des besoins nationaux de consommation et dégage même un léger excédent.
C'est pour moi l'occasion d'adresser du haut de cette tribune nos remerciements aux pays amis, aux institutions bancaires internationales et aux organismes de coopération qui nous ont apporté et continuent à nous apporter leur précieux concours pour le financement de nos opérations de développement rural.
Ce concours, Monsieur le Président, nous est encore plus que jamais nécessaire pour garantir à notre agriculture des assises plus sûres au moyen de l'irrigation.
En effet, l'agriculture, et singulièrement la production céréalière, restera précaire dans les pays du Sahel tant qu'elle sera essentiellement tributaire de la pluviométrie, et cela quelque soit l'ardeur des paysans et les structures mises en place par les gouvernements. La campagne agricole, en cours qui a vu les pluies s'arrêter brutalement et prématurément dans les pays du Sahel membres du CILSS nous rappelle malheureusement à cette triste réalité. En effet, si dans mon paysmalgré une pluviométrie légèrement inférieure à la normale mais bien répartie dans le temps et dans l'espace, les récoltes ont été satisfaisantes au cours des deux dernières campagnes agricoles grâce aux structures d'encadrement mises en place, cette année par contre, l'établissement tardif de la saison des pluies et son arrêt prématuré en septembre plongent à nouveau des millions de paysans sahéliens dans l'angoisse, la misère et peut-être la faim.
Je dis peut-être la faim parce que le Comité inter-états de lutte contre la sécheresse au Sahel vient de faire à nouveau appel à la solidarité internationale comme ce fut le cas au cours de la dernière sécheresse des années 1970 à 1973. Le déficit céréalier dans les huit Etats membres du CILSS a été provisoirement évalué à près de 500. 000 T. Certes, compte tenu de l'élan de solidarité que la communauté internationale a manifesté en faveur du Sahel au cours de la dernière sécheresse, on peut légitimement espérer que cette fois encore l'aide alimentaire ne fera pas défaut aux populations sinistrées.
Malheureusement, Monsieur le Président, l'aide alimentaire, si généreuse soit-elle, permet certes d'assurer provisoirement la survie des populations, mais elle ne résout pas les vrais problèmes du Sahel, elle les laisse presque intacts. La solution correcte du problème alimentaire des populations et des animaux du Sahel qui conditionne le développement réel des pays du Sahel réside dans la sécurisation de l'agriculture par l'irrigation.
C'est pour moi l'occasion, après l'Ambassadeur André Young, de paraphraser à mon tour le vieux dicton chinois en disant:
''Donner du poisson à un homme qui a faim est bien, mais lui donner un filet et lui apprendre à pêcher est encore mieux. "
Dans la plupart des castles populations du Sahel savent déjà pêcher et elles ont également le fleuve; ce qui leur manque, par contre, c'est le filet - c'est à dire, les capitaux pour réaliser les aménagements hydroagricoles, de quoi construire les barrages et creuser les canaux d'irrigation. En effet, des études récentes effectuées par les Nations Unies, la FAO, le CILSS et le Club du Sahel démontrent éloquemment que les pays du Sahel disposent de suffisamment d'eau en surface et sous terre et de terres arables pour produire de quoi nourrir plusieurs fois leurs populations actuelles. L'exemple de mon propre pays est là pour le prouver. En effet, il a suffi de deux années de pluviométrie à peu près normale pour augmenter la production de coton de 15 pour cent par an et pour réaliser l'autosuffisance alimentaire en céréales. C'est dire, Monsieur le Président, que si la Communauté des nantis accordait la priorité souhaitée aux investissements dans lè secteur de la production vivrière dans les pays en voie de développement comme le préconise le Président de la Banque mondiale, les pays du Sahel non seulement réaliseraient rapidement l'autosuffisance alimentaire au niveau national et régional, mais pourraient également apporter leurs contributions si modestes, soient-elles à la constitution des stocks de sécurité internationale. C'est pour moil'occasion de sensibiliser notre conférence sur le programme de développement du Sahel, adopté à Ottawa en juin 1977.
Ce programme est un ensemble cohérent dont la réalisation permettra non seulement d'assurer la survie des populations par des actions d'urgence, mais de réhabiliter le Sahel et de faire en sorte que l'Homme sahélien puisse aspirer à autre chose de plus humain, et de plus élevé que sa subsistence quotidienne. Tous les Etats et organismes de coopération économique, scientifique et technique qui désirent se joindre à cette grande oeuvre humaine, qui constitue la réhabilitation des pays sahéliens seront les bienvenus au sein du Club du Sahel.
Monsieur le Président, Messieurs les Ministres, en parlant ainsi je suis profondément conscient que chaque peuple est le principal responsable du développement de son propre pays. Mais lorsque l'on considère que chaque jour plus d'un milliard de dollars sont consacrés à fabriquer et à stocker des armes qui ne peuvent en aucun cas être utilisées qu'avec la profonde conviction et la ferme détermination de détruire l'humanité et ses valeurs, on peut légitimement au nom de l'humanisme tout court aspirer qu'une faible partie de ces sommes colossales soit investie pour mettre à l'abri de la faim, de la soif, de la maladie et de la misère des hommes qui peuvent apporter une contribution de qualité à la civilisation universelle.
En raison des progrès de la science, de la technique, des moyens de communication et du développement des échanges commerciaux qui engendrent une plus grande interdépendance des économies nationales, les pays industrialisés et nantis devraient comprendre qu'ils s'aident eux-mêmes en aidant les pays du Tiers Monde à se développer et à développer en particulier leur agriculture.
A cet égard, et en dépit des dures réalités du moment, la nouvelle orientation de la BIRD en faveur des investissements dans le secteur agricole des pays du Tiers Monde, orientation qui pourra inspirer sûrement les autres institutions bancaires internationales, la création du FIDA, le sentiment de compréhension et de complémentarité qui se tisse chaque jour entre les états au sein des organismes de coopération politique, économique et sociale ouvrent des perspectives encourageantes dans le sens d'une prise en considération des problèmes du Tiers Monde.
Sous l'impulsion de son dynamique Directeur général, notre ami Edouard Saouma, la FAO doit gagner la grande bataille consistant à élever le niveau de nutrition et les conditions de vie de tous les peuples. Pour la réalisation de ces nobles objectifs, je souhaite ardemment que tous les Etats Membres et tous les hommes de bonne volonté accordent leur soutien à notre Organisation. Les propositions contenues dans les documents qui nous sont soumis par le Directeur général constituent à notre avis une synthèse à la fois réaliste et dynamique des recommandations, suggestions et souhaits formulés par les délégations au cours de nos conférences précédentes. Nous recommandons cependant au Directeur général de redoubler d'efforts et de vigilance pour rester le plus longtemps possible attentif aux préoccupations de ceux qui ont le plus besoin de l'assistance de l'Organisation.
A cet égard, la nomination de représentants auprès des pays les plus démunis me parait constituer une bonne courroie de transmission pour maintenir le Directeur général dans la mouvance de la dynamique qu'il veut donner aux actions de l'Organisation.
Dans le même ordre d'idée, nous pensons que la suggestion faite à notre Conférence en vue de la création d'un corps international de volontaires pour le développement de l'agriculture et de l'alimentation pourrait faire l'objet d'une étude approfondie. Notre avis est que toutes les initiatives qui visent à promouvoir le développement et la coopération dans le domaine alimentaire devraient être considérées avec intéreêt.
Enfin, et pour terminer, je désire au nom de ma délégation souhaiter la bienvenue aux distingués représentants des nouveaux Etats admis au sein de notre Organisation. Par la même occasion j'exprime le voeu de voir participer à notre prochaine conférence les représentants authentiques du peuple Zimbabwe et l'espoir aussi de voir siéger un jour parmi nous les dignes et authentiques représentants de nos frères opprimés en Afrique du Sud.
Je vous remercie de votre attention.
The meeting rose at 18. 25 hours
La séance est levée à 18. 25
Se levanta la sesión a las 18. 25 horas
