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Mr. SABIN. And we thought that there could be more orderly marketing and shipments set up with a licensing procedure.

Then, this was followed by the move into the soybean situation. which resulted in the curtailment of soybean contracts and that proved to be, well, almost a disaster because of the effect on our reputation around the world.

We continued to think and talk mostly internally as to the need for export licensing until perhaps the end of August and we concluded that the decision was made that there would be no controls and there was no use discussing it further. Now, we are very hopeful that the present policy of the Department of Agriculture can be successful and that price will ration these supplies, and the indications, as Mr. Middents said, are that there has been an easing of the demand here in the last, say, month, or 2 or 3 weeks. The situation will be tight but we think now we will get through the year without the need of controls.

Senator HUMPHREY. What are your thoughts on export licensing? I have had mixed emotions about it but what has worried me is when you get into a situation where you may be in a very tight supply, and yet we still have excess over and above domestic utilization, if we do not have an accurate accounting method of the flow in exports we can either overcommit ourselves and then have a severe problem here at home, and you cannot-we just do not dare overcommit ourselves in terms of wheat, let us say, and run short in wheat for domestic use.

You would have an uprising in the Congress, first, you would have it at home among the consumers and it would not take long to get down here, and nobody would be worrying very much about the grain trade down here, I will tell you. So I am just trying to find a way, not that I would like to use it, but what is the emergency measure that we would have to take in case we got into a real tough, tight supply situation where there was some panic buying, in a sense overbuying, and we were unable to keep tabulations, statistical, accurate statistical information, as to the commitments that were being made as to the outflow of grain.

Mr. SABIN. There has been criticism of the present system of reporting to the Department of Commerce, and it took time for the trade to become adjusted to the procedure, it took time for Commerce to develop procedures for handling the reports and eliminating errors that seemed to have crept in through their computer. But we are hopeful that in view of the experience we have had, and the new reporting system that Agriculture has just implemented, that the reports of sales will be quite accurate and give us a good knowledge of the situation with regard to prospective exports.

Senator HUMPHREY. Well, I am hopeful, too. That provision in the law is one that Senator Bellmon and myself and others urged to have put into the law and we hope that it will work. I prefer it to all the other suggestions that have been made. Anyway, it is too early now to pass judgment saying that it will not work because we do not have that kind of evidence. There was this rather major discrepancy between the Department of Commerce and the Department of Agriculture here a couple of months ago which got a lot of news attention, discrepancy on whether, on the amount of exports that had been committed, that sort of thing, of course, you know, starts shaking the

market and causing people to worry a great deal as to whether we know what we are doing.

Mr. SABIN. Well, the experience, of course, with the soybean controls and then later the skepticism over the reports of anticipated export sales, I think they all tended to stimulate the market during the summer, and now, I believe we are over the worst of that reaction.

Senator HUMPHREY. Yes. That seems like the fever has somewhat subsided.

Mr. SABIN. Yes.

Senator HUMPHREY. I want to thank you very, very much and particularly for your proposals here on the reserve. I appreciate the constructive suggestions and we may be back to you later on as we go along. I want to thank you and your association.

Mr. SABIN. Thank you. We will be glad to cooperate.

Senator HUMPHREY. Before recessing I would like to insert in the record the testimony of several witnesses who appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on October 5, 1973. Speaking to the world food situation, they made several points that are not only relevant to our discussion but emphasize the problems that we are currently facing.

[The information referred to follows:]

STATEMENT OF DR. JEAN MAYER,* PROFESSOR OF NUTRITION AND MASTER
OF DUDLEY HOUSE, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

While all of us may have had reservations about certain aspects of our foreign relations since the end of World War II, we can all take pride over the fact that without any possible doubt, during that period, our country has been the world's chief bulwark against hunger. International politics has sometimes interferred with our relief effort; this was the case in Biafra as I reported in 1969 to this body after a visit to that unhappy war torn area. But whenever recognized governments requested it, we have stood ready to help and, time and time again, vast shipments of grain, skim milk and other foodstuffs have been sent from these shores to feed millions of threatened human beings. In some cases famines have been relieved. In many cases they have been averted. The good will resultant from these measures has been enormous and has often dispelled the fear and distrust which a nation as large and powerful as ours normally engenders.

We stand at risk, unless our trade in foreign commodities is supervised by a central authority, of becoming unable to exercise any such moral authority. By countenancing countless private deals with such gigantic clients as the USSR or China, instead of dealing with them as a unit, we have placed ourselves in a position where we can no longer help such countries as India or Bangladesh and simply have to witness the Russians reaping great credit out of a generosity heavily susidized by the U.S. taxpayer. This, in fact, is what is happening now in India and Bangladesh, which is being relieved with wheat bought at bargain rates last year. By spreading thin buys, the Russians were able to acquire at one time a great deal of our grain without prices going up for them.

The prices, of course, went up later for the U.S. housewife and for smaller, and often poorer governments. The rise in price to Bangladesh and to African countries, in turn, is as responsible for the famines there as are the natural conditions which aggravated the situation. The Russians, who were known-or should have been known-to have bought more grain than they needed for domestic consumption are in a better position than we are to act as benefactors, particularly in the Indian subcontinent.

I have it on the authority of Admiral Halsey's then signal officer that in 1945,

Doctor Jean Mayer, who was special consultant to the President 1969-1970, and chairman of the White House Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health, is a member of the Protein Advisory Group of the United Nations System and heads the UNICEF task force on child nutrition.

at the time of the liberation of the Philippines, when General MacArthur announced, "I have returned.", Halsey sent him the private message, “You have hit the jackpot with my nickel." The Russians are doing this right now. By allowing (and apparently continuing to allow) foreign governments to deal with a series of individual commodity traders, we have put ourselves in the situation where we risk abdicating much of our influence (and potential profit) in using internationally our chief national resource, the products of our agriculture. In a world where pressure on grain and soybean production is going to mount, as a result of the twin influence of increasing population in underdeveloped countries, and increasing affluence in industrial countries, we must be able to set (and execute) a firm policy on the use of our crops. I would recommend, therefore, the creation of a Foreign Grain and Soybean Trade Authority responsive to the President through input from both the Department of Agriculture and the State Department. Like all executive bodies, this Authority would, of course, be ultimately responsible to Congress.

STATEMENT OF PROF. ROY L. PROSTERMAN, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON SCHOOL OF LAW, SEATTLE, WASH.

Mr. Chairman, it is a privilege to appear here today, testifying on what must surely be one of the topmost issues on the agenda of mankind in October of 1973.

One million tons of grain will feed between four and five million people for a year. A dozen or so less-developed countries are still short this year, even taking account of the recent Indian grain acquisitions, by a total of at least five million tons, and this total may be as high as eight million tons or more. By "short," I mean that they will not be able to produce it themselves, due to a series of droughts, floods and other crop disasters, and that they are highly unlikely to be able to buy it on the world market at or anywhere near the current market price.

It is hard, I know, for Americans to imagine people who are in the condition that World Bank President Robert McNamara has recently described as "absolute poverty." This condition-in which hunger and malnutrition are daily facts of life, in which one out of four or five of a couple's children die before the age of five and many of those who survive are stunted in mind or body, in which life expectancy is 20 years less than ours—is a condition affecting an estimated 40% of the population of the less-developed countries, or nearly a billion people. Mr. McNamara calls this a "condition of life so limited as to prevent realization of the potential of the genes with which one is born; a condition of life so degrading as to insult human dignity."

Over the past six years, I have seen and talked with hundreds of those who fall within this "40%," in a dozen countries. Within the past year, I have talked with peasants and the poor-and those who are trying to improve the lot of these desperately unfortunate people-in most of the major countries of Asia. I have come here today, to ask you respectfully, that something be done about the great tragedy that hangs over the heads of tens of millions of these people as we sit in this hearing room. For when a family that exists almost entirely on a diet of grain, and on less, often far less, than 2000 calories a day per adult person, misses out each day on a loaf of bread, or on a bowl of rice for each, they die. When a family that gets its food from the soil sees its erops swept away by floods or withered by drought-and there are millions of such today-they die. When a family that gets its food from its cattle sees those eattle starve-and there are millions of these people in the Sahel-they starve too. When a family living in the fetid disease-ridden city slums, that gets its food from the market or the government warehouse, sees scarcity drive that food up to twice or three times its former price or off the floor of the government warehouse, then that family dies. They cannot go to a bank to borrow money to replace their crop, or their cattle, or to pay the doubled price of food. They cannot go to friends or relatives, because this is not an individual tragedy, but one that affects their friends and relatives too. They cannot get a better-paying job, or spend less on housing or clothing. They have nowhere to turn.

1 Affluence is accompanied by great indirect use of grain for animal production. Poor, but adequately fed countries use 400 to 500 pounds of grain per person per year. In the United States we use less than 150 pounds of grain directly as bread, breakfast cereals or fourbased products but are utilizing over 2,000 pounds to produce beef and other meats, poultry, milk and eggs.

Tens of millions of these people-in zones of flood, and drought and disaster in a dozen countries of Asia and Africa-will be almost totally dependent for their lives, over the next 12 months, on the compassion and goodwill of America and of the other affluent nations. Anywhere from 10 million to 30 million incremental deaths-deaths above and beyond those that would be traceable to malnutrition in a "normal" year-could be suffered in these countries, if there is no response from the developed world.

But it is these millions upon millions of individual lives that lie behind the grim statistics of need, which I shall briefly review:

India. India has now received a loan of 2 million tons of grain from Russia, and is reported to have purchased another 2 million tons commercially. For the amount purchased she has paid a terrible price, since financing has been at the cost of many basic development programs. These 4 million tons cover most of the 4.5 million tons by which, since June or July, India has estimated her supplies would fall short. But if one accepts a need figure of approximately one million tons a month from late October, when present wheat supplies will run out, to mid-April, when the wheat harvest provides the first reliable increment to internal surpluses-and assuming that the harvest is average or betterthen India may still be short as much as 1.5 million tons Thus, India may need as little as balf a million tons, or as much as 1.5 million. And priority shipment for the 4 million tons just acquired may be a crucial problem: wheat in Soviet or American warehouses cannot keep a man on a farm in the Punjab or a little girl on the streets of Bombay from starving to death.

Pakistan.-Pakistan lost both large quantities of stored wheat and substantial amounts of unharvested rice in the recent floods. Pakistan also lost the major portion of its cotton crop, with earnings from which additional grain imports could have been financed. Estimates of need would appear to range from a low figure of around 250,000 tons of rice and 350,000 tons of wheat, up to 500,000 tons of rice and 1,000,000 tons of wheat, with most-probable estimates appearing to fall around a total need of 1,000,000 tons.

Bangladesh.-Bangladesh appears to be short by about a million tons of rice, although some estimates have been even higher.

The Philippines.-With a combination of carryover effects from floods and Tungro disease in the north, which were then followed by inadequate rains after replanting, and a devastating drought in the south, the Philippines is short about 500,000 tons of rice. As in India, although probably not to as great an extent, there have already been civil disorders, and the Philippine army has been put in charge of rice distribution.

Indonesia.-The estimates are that there will be a substantial need for imported rice, or a substitute grain, but I have seen no specific figure as yet. The population pressure on Java-an island smaller than Wisconsin or Michigan, but with a population of 80,000,000—is such that life is as precarious as anywhere on the globe, and a shortage of grain could mean death for millions of people

Sri Lanka.-There have been reports of a substantial shortage of rice, but here again I have as yet seen no specific figure.

Sahel, Africa.-The six countries of the drought-stricken Sahel-Senegal, Mauritania, Upper Volta, Mali, Niger, and Chad-have thus far received contributions of 650.000 tons of cereals, including 256,000 tons from the U.S., in a magnificent, multilateral relief effort that has saved millions of lives. A joint U.S.-FAO field assessment was underway in September of the prospective needs over coming months but the expectation is that emergency food relief will be needed for a further 12-15 months even, as a recent State Department report put it, “under the best of circumstances." One unofficial estimate was that the 24 million people of this area, for this year, may lose 60% of their cattle and 50% of their grain harvests. It seems probable that further food aid at least in quantities as large as those already provided, and perhaps substantially larger, will be needed through 1974. It must be kept in mind that every reserve, including seed grain, has been used up in many parts of the region, and that the drastically depleted herds cannot be relied on at all for meat but must be rebuilt.

Chile.-Chile reportedly has urgent need of 300,000 tons of wheat, and for as much as 1.2 million tons over the rest of the year. As and if calm returns there, we should have a better idea of how much of this quantity represents a real shortage due to disruption of agricultural production and how much of the shortage may have been caused merely by the disruption of internal transportation and distribution mechanisms.

There have been recent reports of substantial shortfalls in Ethiopia, and shortages may exist in other countries as well. Most recently, there have been reports that China is in the U.S. and Canadian markets for 4 million tons of grain, although there appears to be hope that this can be cut in half with focus on China's really "essential" needs, and, of course, I cannot anticipate possible further weather disasters: the foregoing account assumes that everyone will harvest "normal"crops over the coming months and into 1974.

With the preceding discussion put into tabular form, with "high" and "low" estimates of need where a range of estimates exists, and with a very rough figure of 1 million tons taken as the combined need for Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia, the result is as follows:

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I This total does not take into account the possible need, nor the intensity of that need or ability to meet it without relying on concessional terms, of China for up to 4,000,000 tons of grain.

The question, of course, is not of world surpluses, nor of world import demand "at prevailing price levels," two smokescreens which USDA officials have, regrettably, put up at various times in recent weeks. Tens of millions of people, in a dozen or more countries, desperately need staple grains which neither they, nor their government on their behalf, can afford to buy. The affluent countries, together, possess stocks of such staple grains considerably in excess of their collective nutritional needs-although perhaps not in excess of their unthinking, business-as-usual proclivities to waste, store, or overconsume such grains. The immediate and pressing question is one of how to find the mechanisms by which at least 5 million tons of the excess grain in the hands of the affluent nations can be gotten to the dozen needy nations in time to prevent millions of deaths. Such a famine, moreover, will play havoc with political stability, and it will-paradoxically-probably set family planning efforts back a decade, since poor families that lose a child to famine seem inclined to replace that child two or three times over. To deal with this global threat a series of bold and sweeping steps will be required on the part of both the public and private sectors, to arrange for cooperation among many nations, to alert public opinion, to authorize adequate funding under P.L. 480 and other mechanisms, and to mobilize help at the grass-roots. Beyond the immediate and critical problem of famine and its consequences, there is also a broader question of what can be done to prevent this kind of crisis from arising in the future. To meet the prospect of wide-spread famine, I believe that the following specific steps are required, which I should like briefly to outline:

One. The first and most vital need is to obtain global cooperation and coordination on this issue, and to accomplish this I think several steps will be very helpful. I think that a very powerful Congressional delegation should go to the November FAO meeting with this issue at the top of their agenda. I think that it should be stressed, at every occasion, in Congress and elsewhere, that global famine is an issue that must be handled as part and parcel of America's foreign relations and foreign policy, and is not an issue where the decision-making should take place in the narrow confines of the Department of Agriculture. With a broad initiative from this country, I think that other affluent nations—such as the European Community nations, which as of last month had 2.8 million metric tons of American wheat contracted for, but not yet exported, or Japan, which also had 2.8 million tons, bought but not yet exported, or other European nations, which together had 800,000 tons-should be strongly urged to allow diversion of a major part of that grain to the needy areas. This should provide

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