in the statement submitted by Edgar Owens on June 12, 1973, to the House Foreign Affairs Committee in the course of its hearings on the congressional initiative to restructure the bilateral aid program. This bipartisan legislative proposal introduced to the U.S. Congress in 1973 to restructure the U.S. Agency for International Development and increase by at least 50 percent the support it provides for agricultural and rural development in the years immediately ahead is a timely and important initiative. This proposal seeks to capitalize on the unique capacity of the United States to lead an enlarged effort to expand the world's food supply. Not incidentally, the new approach of the aid bill would be valuable in helping to meet many of the long-range problems now facing the drought-stricken regions of the African Sahel.

Concentrating efforts on expanding food production in the poor countries could reduce upward pressure on world food prices, create additional employment in countries where continuously rising unemployment poses a serious threat to political stability, raise income, improve nutrition for the poorest portion of humanity-the people living in rural areas of the developing countries-and it could also, as I will discuss below, be a very important factor in significantly reducing birth rates.

SLOWING POPULATION GROWTH

The prospect of an emerging chronic global scarcity of food as a result of growing pressures on available food resources underlines the need to stabilize and eventually halt population growth in as short a period of time as possible. One can conceive of this occurring in the industrial countries given recent demographic trends.

In the poor countries, however, it will be much more difficult to achieve population stability within an acceptable time frame, at least as things are going now. For one thing, the historical record indicates that birth rates do not usually decline unless certain basic social needs are satisfied—a reasonable standard of living, an assured food supply, a reduced infant mortality rate, literacy, and health services-which provides the basic motivation for smaller families.

In short, it is in the self-interest of affluent societies, such as the United States, to launch a major additional effort directed at helping developing countries to step up food production and generally accelerate the development of the rural areas which contain the great majority of the world's people and most of the very poor. This effort would not only increase food production at a relatively low cost, but would also meet the basic social needs of people throughout the world. The latter is a prerequisite in lowering birth rates. Populationinduced pressures on the global food supply will continue to increase if substantial economic and social progress is not made. Populations that double every 24 years-as many are doing in poor nationsmultiply eight fold in scarcely 75 years.

The new bilateral aid proposals, with their emphasis on reaching the poorest sectors within developing nations and a complementary focus on rural development, represent a sophisticated and necessary comprehensive approach to slowing population growth. By placing an increased emphasis on meeting basic social needs, particularly in the

rural areas where the majority of the world's people live-the U.S. aid program can simultaneously help stem the rapid population growth which threatens the ultimate well-being of everyone, and help bring the needed increases in agricultural output.

AMERICAN INDIFFERENCE

In the face of this year's food crisis and the prospects of added vulnerability in the years to come, the American Government has assumed a curious posture of complacency. Secretary of State Kissinger's recent recognition of the world's dangerous food situation in the United Nations was a welcome exception to more frequent Department of Agriculture and State Department views, but remains unlinked with actual governmental policies and actions.

The unprecedented early release of crop forecasts for 1974 by the Department of Agriculture was an apparent effort to assure the world community that no crisis exists, that no extraordinary new measures are necessary. It resembled the whistling of a 10-year-old boy walking by a graveyard after dark. In a modern-day version of laissezfaire, the Department is trying to reassure the world with the truism that world grain supplies will equal demand at prevailing prices in the foreseeable future. The poor, who can tighten their belts no further, and the wealthier importing nations, who have already witnessed American readiness to cut off exports when supplies get tight, are not consoled by this argument.

Rather than continuing to provide paper assurances to a justly insecure world, the U.S. Government might begin thinking of immediate steps to build a more genuine confidence in the future. The Department of Agriculture might start building up at least a minimal level of reserve stocks to provide a margin of safety next year, even though prices are high. The U.S. Government could give its full political and economic support to the FAO reserve proposals at the crucial FAO Conference next month. Given the precariousness of the world food balance at present it might be wise to reduce consumption of meat a few pounds per capita within affluent, overnourished societies such as the United States in order to accumulate some food reserves now to lessen the chaos which will result a year hence if the drought cycle should return to North America next year.

Continued American callousness in the food area will inevitably have repercussions in our relations with the rest of the world in other domains. With large-scale investments abroad and a growing need for outside raw materials, the United States would be wise to build an atmosphere of international cooperation rather than conflict and competition in areas like food, where we hold the key to a more stable and equitable world system. Playing politics with food is risky indeed. There is also a moral imperative to take action to reduce the impact of the present food scarcity and reduce the likelihood of future disaster. The point was forcefully articulated by Chancellor Willy Brandt of West Germany in his first address before the U.N. General Assembly: "Morally it makes no difference whether a man is killed in war or is condemned to starve to death by the indifference of others."

[Whereupon, at 4:45 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned to reconvene at 10 a.m., Thursday, October 18, 1973.]

U.S. AND WORLD FOOD SITUATION

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1973

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION,

MARKETING AND STABILIZATION OF PRICES AND SUBCOMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AGRICULTURAL POLICY OF THE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY, Washington, D.C.

The committee met, pursuant to recess, at 10:20 a.m. in room 1318, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Hubert H. Humphrey [chairman of the Subcommittee on Foreign Agricultural Policy], presiding. Present: Senators Humphrey and Huddleston.

STATEMENT OF HON. HUBERT H. HUMPHREY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA-Resumed

Senator HUMPHREY. Dr. Gale Johnson. Will you come forward? Just for our record and our colleagues, Dr. Johnson is presently professor of economics at the University of Chicago. He served on the President's Task Force on Foreign Economic Assistance and was a member of the National Advisory Commission on Food and Fiber, as well as the National Commission on Population Growth and the American Future.

He has published extensively in his area of major interest, agricultural economics. He received his Ph. D. degree from Iowa State College.

Dr. Johnson, we are grateful to you for taking the time to come. I think I should note that some of our witnesses were not given sufficient notice, in light of their heavy work schedule, to prepare for us an elaborate written testimony, but certainly a man who knows as much about the problems that we are talking about here as you do, is welcome under any circumstances. So we are just going to listen to your observations on the subject of world food policy.

Were you with Dr. Berg on the Food and Fiber Commission?

STATEMENT OF DR. D. GALE JOHNSON, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, CHICAGO, ILL.

Dr. JOHNSON. Yes, I was, Senator.

Senator HUMPHREY. He is a very good friend of mine at the University of Minnesota.

I see nothing wrong in your background at all except you might have gone one State further north to get your Ph. D. degree, but Iowa State is one of our truly great agricultural colleges as well as a great university in liberal arts. We welcome you.

Dr. JOHNSON. Well, you are very kind, Senator Humphrey. I might ask in terms of the schedule, roughly how long do you wish my comments to be?

Senator HUMPHREY. Just take whatever time you need.

Dr. JOHNSON. You should not tell a professor that.

Senator HUMPHREY. Yes, sir. I am sure that you have much to contribute here this morning. You are a good teacher.

Dr. JOHNSON. Thank you.

Senator HUMPHREY. Ånd we are in the process of learning.

Dr. JOHNSON. In thinking about my comments for this morning, I had planned to talk primarily about two very important issues that you stated as the purpose of your holding these hearings; namely, the questions of market stability and food security and the questions of adjustments in trade and domestic foreign policies. I would be glad to try to answer questions in some of the other areas if I feel competent to do so.

But I believe at this juncture in the world food situation and in the possibilities for improving the trading relations among nations as far as agricultural products are concerned, that these two issues, that of adequate reserves of the major food commodities, and I mean here primarily the grains, and the prospects for adjusting both domestic and trade programs to facilitate the expansion of world trade and agricultural products are very closely related to each other.

The adverse impact of the export quotas on agricultural products, especially soybeans and related products, have been very substantial so far as our major buyers are concerned, and I do not believe that we can ignore those adverse effects. Some considerable part of this concern is real. Some part is an effort to find excuses for not reducing the barriers to trade, but the real concern is significant and it may be put as follows, namely, whether the United States can be counted on as a reliable supplier of agricultural products if a nation becomes dependent upon us for a significant fraction of its total supply of an important food product, feed products such as corn or soybeans or wheat, and the type of question which obviously lurks in the minds of policymakers is whether the United States would place its immediate or short-run domestic interests above its interests in expanding exports of farm products.

In a somewhat less pejorative context, can the United States provide reasonable assurance that despite variations in crop yields at home and fluctuating demands that it can meet foreign demands at relatively stable prices.

If achieved, a liberalization of trade in farm products would result in Western Europe becoming dependent on the United States for a significantly larger fraction of its feed supply than is now the case, and significant interruptions in that supply, for whatever reasons, would be very disruptive to the livestock economy of Western Europe. I think this is an appropriate way of viewing the problem as it would be seen by Western Europeans or perhaps even more concretely by the Japanese who have much less capacity to produce grains at home. And these questions that exist in other people's minds do exist even though it is true that in spite of the protein feed export controls, the U.S. market has been the most open in the world. Yet, it was our controls that were greatly criticized and the others ignored.

Senator HUMPHREY. Would you repeat that again, Dr. Johnson?