THE CONFERENCE of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations concluded its eleventh session in Rome in November. In the course of the session it unanimously approved a 40 percent increase in the regular budget of the Organization and a program of work for 1962 and 1963 which provides for greatly expanded activity in the developing countries and particularly in those of Africa.
The Conference, which as the governing body of FAO meets once every two years, opened early in November with a call by Dr. B. R. Sen, the Director-General, for its members to accept responsibilities "which are inescapable if the member nations are to be assisted adequately in their struggle to achieve a better life for their peoples."
John D. Rockefeller 3rd, Chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation, delivered the McDougall Memorial Lecture at the opening of the general discussion on the world food and agricultural situation. He said that the "unchecked growth" of world population "is second only to the control of atomic weapons as the paramount problem of our day," and called on member nations to "face the facts" on population growth and its implications and to determine whether "population stabilization" is necessary and feasible in their countries.
Under the chairmanship of Georges Khalil Haraoui, former Minister of Agriculture and Member of the Lebanese Parliament, the Conference approved 20 applications for membership bringing the total to 104 members and associates.
Acceleration of the Freedom from Hunger Campaign was mapped out, and a special program of education and training in Africa was approved, to be undertaken by FAO in co-operation with other interested specialized agencies of the United Nations. The Conference also authorized the Director-General to put a $100-million, three-year World Food Program into action as promptly as possible. The fund, partly in commodities and partly in cash, was proposed by the United States as an instrument to assist social and economic development. It is an elaboration of the World Food Board proposed in 1947 by Lord Boyd-Orr when Director-General of FAO, which failed at that time because the climate of international opinion was not ready for it. The United States has already offered to make available $40 million, Canada has offered $5 million and Denmark $2 million. Other countries have pledged themselves to join the fund.
Past, present and future forestry activities of FAO were discussed by a Technical Committee on Forestry and Forest Products which met prior to the Conference.
A full report on the Committee's work will appear in the next issue of Unasylva. The Committee gave priority in the 1962-63 program to education training, followed by forest inventories, land use (including shifting cultivation, watershed management and grazing in forests, and other open land), development of forest industries (pulp and paper, sawmilling, plywood manufacture and other industries), logging, quick-growing tree species, and silviculture (including research on savanna forestry).
FIGURE 2. - The survey team moving from one base camp to another makes use of river transport.
