Ten to thirty million human beings in a dozen Asian and African countries who have been the victims of and have suffered from flood, drought, and other disasters could die of starvation or from diseases brought about by malnutrition which their neglected bodies can no longer fight.

Food reserves have shrunk to their lowest levels in 20 years, despite a 50-percent increase in the number of mouths to feed in the world, and there is very little arable land that can, in the near future, be put into food production.

Demand for protein is growing more rapidly than supply and prospects are not bright for any rapid improvement in this situation. Per acre yields, for example, of soybeans have increased at an annual rate of only 1 percent during the last 25 years. It is still uncertain whether the anchoveta stock will once more become a major protein source or simply disappear.

I am sure we will hear from Dr. Borlaug and others about our fishery resources and what the trends seem to be in the fishing industry and what those trends mean to the available supply of protein.

The doubling or tripling of food prices that has occurred in some countries this year does not inconvenience people who spend 80 percent of their income on a diet of grain; it kills them.

Or, to put it another way, for our fellow Americans, food price increases in this country which are inconvenient to many and a great difficulty to some become a tragic catastrophe for people in developing countries where a larger portion of the disposable income is expended for food.

We spend about 17 percent of our disposable income for food. In the developing countries this will be as high as 80 to 90 percent and even in some of the European countries, the disposable income spent for food will be as high as 25 to 35 percent. Thereby, any sharp increase in commodity prices due to tight supply or shortage can have a catastrophic effect both upon national budgets and upon individual family incomes.

But the present threat is even more of an outrage to our humanity, because I believe that it could have been averted.

Yes, we in the food exporting nations could have done a better job of planning to meet world food needs.

We could have hedged against the uncertainties of flood and drought that cannot be safely predicted, through a reasonable food reserves policy.

We could have led international cooperative efforts to plan for food security with a system of worldwide food reserves.

To put it simply, we could have done a much better job of supporting international efforts to help the people in food deficient areas to produce more of their own food.

Yes, we could have done all of these things. We should have done all of these things. But the fact is we did not.

The question is why? Certainly not because we were malicious or callous to people's needs for good food at reasonable prices.

Basically, it was because we had become complacent. After 25 years of food surpluses in the United States, we began to take them for granted. We also began to take cheap food prices as the standard fare for American consumers.

We just never dreamed, for a moment, that our food surpluses would become shortages. Well, all of that, as we all know, has changed dramatically and things will never be the same.

It would be all foo easy to write off this year's shortages and price increases to the droughts and bad weather over the past 2 or 3 years. Some people are trying to do just that, and saying that it will most likely never happen again, but it would be foolhardy and irresponsible to do so. A study of the world food situation clearly reveals that there are deeply rooted causes of the current world food crisis. Rising affluence and unchecked population growth are beginning to strain the productive capacities of world agriculture.

The major swings in world food production that we have experienced in recent years make the consumers of the world all the more vulnerable to circumstances in the food surplus areas of the world, principally the United States.

Given these factors, and the resulting growth in interdependence among nations in their efforts to feed their people, world leaders must accept their responsibility for assuring world food security and begin now to plan to carry out this heavy responsibility. At the forefront of such efforts must be the United States.

Our concern with America's ability to meet world food needs is not solely humanitarian. Food exports are essential to a flourishing American economy. Last year we exported $13 billion of agricultural products and this could expand greatly in the next few years. It is this $6 billion surplus that our agricultural exports have earned which has provided the margin of resources needed to meet our growing energy requirements.

To put it another way, the factories in this country would be shut down were it not for the available excess capital that has been gained from our agricultural exports and which makes possible the purchase of energy to fuel industry.

Therefore, a sound, well planned, cooperative world food policy is in the direct interest of the United States.

The policies of this past year provide ample evidence that our Government has failed in its short- and long-term planning in the food policy area. And I might add other governments have been equally derelict. In fact, food policy has been neglected and we are suffering the consequences today. Even more patently obvious is the fact that no one is in charge. Our so-called food policy with all of its elements is spread helter-skelter throughout the governmental structure without any central focal point.

A responsible and sensible food policy should anticipate shortages due to weather and increased demand resulting from population ana economic growth. Failure to have such a policy has resulted in food shortages and inflation in commodity prices which have harassed the American consumer and brought many in other lands to the point of

starvation.

There is no reason why our Government should continue to reject proposals for a buffer of domestic reserves to provide for the inevitable swings in world demand which we can expect to encounter from time to time.

I would just like to add at this point, and Senator Huddleston may be interested in this, that last week Senator McGovern and I held hearings before the Foreign Relations Committee for 1 day on the sub

ject of world food supply as it relates to our foreign policy, and in 1956, 17 years ago, I had advanced in the Congress of the United States a proposal for a world food bank. We called it an international food and fiber reserve. We held hearings before this committee and before the Foreign Relations Committee. The Government at that time— whose official policy was in opposition to such a reserve-stated that reserves were here already and that it was not necessary.

The witness that appeared before my subcommittee at that time was then the Assistant Secretary of State, Dr. Earl Butz. Today he is the Secretary of Agriculture.

Other witnesses appeared from the State Department. They also were opposed.

I am pleased to note that Dr. Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State, in his first appearance before the United Nations indicated a much more positive attitude about America's role in cooperating on a worldwide basis in establishing some form of international food and fiber

reserve.

It would be unconscionable in light of the occurrences of the past year, not to learn from our errors in judgment and mistakes; and to start taking food policy planning more seriously.

We must put such planning at the very forefront of American Government policy.

I feel very strongly that all the nations of the world, including our own, must immediately place more emphasis on what we can do collectively and individually to rationalize domestic food and farm policies with international food demands. We cannot wait for a new crisis to hit us before we begin to review the need for change in our policies. And I hope and pray that those in responsible positions in our Government will not just assume that the circumstances of the last 2 years are not subject to repetition. I have lived long enough to know that you can have bad weather quite often. Therefore, planning must be done now.

The issue of having enough food to eat is just too important to be ignored or "swept under the rug."

I call upon my colleagues in the Congress to begin looking into the question of food security with the urgency with which we deal with military security. It is certainly deserving of our attention and, in fact, is a vital part of our national security.

I would hate to think of what could happen in this country today if the situation in the Middle East should break out into a major international conflagration. The United States of America is ill-prepared to meet any kind of international emergency today on any kind of long-range basis in light of its present food policy.

We only have half a national security program, long on bombs and planes and tanks and short on food and fiber. One of the greatest generals of all times, Napoleon, once said that an army travels on its stomach, and I would suggest that some of our planners in the Pentagon and in other parts of the Government might take a good look at the wisdom of those remarks.

We are weak today as a nation, not in military equipment, but in the reserves that are needed for a nation of our size and responsibility to insure adequate supplies of food and fiber.

It is with these thoughts in mind, knowing that a shortage of food brings international tension, that a shortage of food supply can deci

mate international monetary policy, and that a shortage of food supply acts like gasoline on the fires of inflation, that I call for an in-depth examination of the world food situation in order to make decisions about what can be done.

Today's hearing is the first in a comprehensive series of hearings in which we will attempt to explore various aspects of the world food system and I emphasize agriculture as a system, a very complex one. This is the perspective from which we wish to take a look at world agriculture.

In subsequent hearings we will focus on the components of this system to take a closer look at the issues which we must address during the coming years and decades.

The stakes are too high to let our food policies be established in an emergency atmosphere after the crisis is upon us.

Our responsibility to ourselves, to the world, to producers and consumers alike, is just too great to let this matter be handled in a haphazard manner.

Now, I would like to yield to my colleague from Kentucky.

STATEMENT OF HON. WALTER D. HUDDLESTON, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF KENTUCKY

Senator HUDDLESTON. Thank you, Senator Humphrey.

The American housewife paying her weekly grocery bill, the Japanese citizen hearing of the U.S. embargo on soybean exports, the average farmer paying double for his feed grains, the hollow-eyed man barely subsisting on the Indian subcontinent know that there are problems in the United States and world agriculture systems.

The food machine is out of whack, and little drops of oil in the form of abolished set-asides and optimistic predictions are not guarantees of a smooth-running future. We may, in fact, need major overhauls of transportation, energy supply, fertilizer and marketing structure components to insure a viable system.

Furthermore, housewife Smith, Japanese citizen Moto, and farmer Brown are frustrated. They want to know what has happened to the machine-why it is broken, what needs to be done, and what can be done to return it to good running order.

That, in essence, Mr. Chairman, is what these hearings are about. We want to find out why the U.S. and world agricultural systems are out of kilter-to identify the factors which created the current problems. Beyond that, we want to develop an understanding of where we are now and where we are likely to go in the upcoming months as far as agricultural supply and demand are concerned. And, we want to explore the alternative means of dealing with the anticipated supplydemand situation.

Basically, we are faced with three problem situations. First, in the United States where foodstuffs have traditionally been abundant and inexpensive, we are now experiencing both high prices and scarcities. Second, in Japan and Western Europe, where incomes have been continuously rising, there are new demands for high protein foods, especially meats, which are partially dependent upon feed grains. Third, the less developed countries, where population growth continues at high rates, have been plagued by a number of natural disasters, bringing millions of their people to the edge of starvation.

Against this background, we have the lowest world grain reserves in 20 years. And, while U.S. production is high, the domestic carryover in July 1973 was down from the preceding years for wheat, corn, feed grains, rice, soybeans, and cotton.

Wheat and rice are, consequently, expected to be in tight supply in the upcoming months. Corn and other feed grains are likely to be more available than wheat and rice, but there is also a possibility of short supplies here.

We will be walking something of a tightrope, balanced so long as anticipated production and demand hold, but in danger of losing that balance in the face of disastrous weather conditions, unexpected foreign requirements and other unanticipated changes in the supplydemand equation.

Partially as a result of this delicate balance, it is considered likely that flour- and feed grain-based foodstuffs will remain fairly high in cost in the closing months of this year and early months of 1974.

As that happens, and as we seek to protect our own supplies, we are likely to see continued attention to the U.S. export policy. The U.S. demand-supply situation is interwoven with foreign policies. The North American continent, the United States and Canada, account for a large portion of the world grain trade. During the past 10 years, the United States alone has supplied more than half of world net exports of grain and well over half of all the carryover stocks from year to year.

An examination of the wheat marketing year which began this past July 1 well illustrates the importance of this exporting position. The carryin for the 1973-74 year for wheat was 428 million bushels. That, added to the 1.7 billion bushel harvest anticipated, gives a total supply of 2.1 billion bushels.

Yet, domestic usage has been estimated at 790 million bushels for seed, feed grain and food purposes. Thus, less than half of current U.S. production and only a little over a third of total U.S. supply would satisfy anticipated U.S. or domestic demand.

Thus, the need for exports is evident-otherwise, we would have a glut on the domestic market, and not only for wheat but also for corn and soybeans.

Furthermore, the need for exports is great because these exports contribute to a favorable trade balance which, in turn, helps our balance of payments, improves the stability of the dollar, and enables us to purchase a growing list of scarce materials from abroad, including

energy resources.

How these exports should be handled, however-what should be done to protect the U.S. farmer, consumer and taxpayer; what commodities should go to the increasingly affluent nations; what to help the millions throughout the world living in poverty; what to improve relations with other nations, such as the Soviet Union-remain unanswered policy questions.

Also unanswered are questions relating to the interrelationships among U.S. food production policy and a host of areas upon which such production policy depends.

Increased production, either on the land already being farmed, or on now-fallow land which is to be put back into production, is dependent upon plant nutrients. Are those plant nutrients available?

A second potential problem relates to energy supplies. Natural gas which is used in the production of fertilizers is likely to be scarce-at