least at some points during the winter months. The availability of fuels will, furthermore, have an effect on transportation-from the acquisition of raw materials to the marketing of the product.

Even then, the question of energy supplies is not ended. The farmer must have fuel for planting, for harvesting, for drying and for getting his crop to the barn or warehouse.

The availability of land, of fertilizer, or fuels, all combine to influence another area of importance: credit. Farm operations require a large amount of capital investment, and farmers utilize credit extensively between harvests. Whether or not that credit is available depends in part on the outlook for a good crop. But the availability of credit is also dependent upon factors far beyond the farmer's reach: It also depends upon the general economic conditions of the Nation and upon the market demands for the money which is available to be loaned.

While these interrelationships focus on domestic grain production, each of these has its foreign component, too. The amount of land to be placed in production is to be based not only upon domestic requirements, but also upon foreign ones, under the new farm legislation.

Demands for fertilizer arise not only from the domestic acreage requirements, but also from foreign demand for fertilizer. Developing nations, in efforts to upgrade the diets of their people, need fertilizer. Even industrialized nations, where land is scarce, must depend heavily on plant nutrients. If, for example, fertilizer were denied to Japan or the Netherlands, their production would likely fall by half. Fuel and energy have the same international components. The United States is becoming more and more dependent upon imports. Our major sources are the nations of the Middle East, nations which are questioning our economic policies toward them and our political policies in their area of the world.

All of these factors-and others are determinants in the United States and world demand supply equation. They must be assessed and understood if we are to guide them rather than have them guide usif we are to plan for future food situations, rather then react to them.

I believe, consequently, that we would be remiss in our responsibilities to the American people and to those throughout the world who have need of our grain supply if we did not take this opportunity to establish the record on where we are and to try to outline the course which we should follow in the future to ensure a smooth-running agricultural system capable of meeting the demands for performance which will inevitably be placed upon it. The demands are not likely to be sidetracked. And, whether the system runs or stalls will be of utmost importance to us all.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator HUMPHREY. Thank you very much, Senator Huddleston. We have a statement for the committee from one of our colleagues who serves on these subcommittees, Senator Robert Dole, of Kansas. Senator Dole could not be here today because of prior commitments in the State of Kansas but he has given us a statement.

I am going to ask that his statement be placed in the record. He would note for the record the importance of the worldwide demand and worldwide food situation and he says

I just want to remind you of the importance of this subject to the State of Kansas. Kansans have a great interest in these hearings and I regret that prior commit

ments prevent me from participating at this particular time and I would hope that you will schedule additional hearings at a later date and allow some testimony from interested Kansans who are well qualified to testify on the subject.

Indeed, we will have a number of hearings which will follow this opening session and hope to hear from many Kansans and others later. He has shown considerable interest, and may I say knowledge of the subject matter that is under review today.

[Statement referred to follows:]

STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT DOLE, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF KANSAS

Mr. Chairman, you are to be congratulated for scheduling hearings to examine the food supply in the world and the relation of this Nation. in the production of that food.

Developments of the last 2 years, that is, improved nutrition and increased affluency in some nations, coupled with crop disasters in other nations, have brought about a change in the United States from controlling overabundance of grain stocks to all-out production to accommodate worldwide demand.

It is most appropriate, therefore, that your subcommittees initiate these hearings. You are aware of the importance of this worldwide demand and the worldwide food situation, and I just want to remind you of the importance of this subject to the State of Kansas. Kansans have a great interest in these hearings, and I regret that prior commitments prevent me from participating at this particular time. I would hope that you will schedule additional days of hearings at a later date and allow testimony from some interested Kansans who are well qualified to testify on the subject.

Senator HUMPHREY. Dr. Borlaug, we are honored by your presence and look forward to any comments that you wish to make. I noted in my research book here that we have a background statement of yours which, I gather, will be made available later.

I think I should note for the media, because of your interest in Dr. Borlaug's observations and his obvious and respected knowledge in this field, that Dr. Borlaug's statement will be made available to the public, and to the media, in the early part of next week, Tuesday or Wednesdav.

Dr. Borlaug, proceed.

STATEMENT OF DR. NORMAN E. BORLAUG, NOBEL LAUREATE IN THE AREA OF FOOD AND NUTRITION; ALSO DIRECTOR OF INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR MAIZE AND WHEAT IMPROVEMENT, MEXICO CITY, MEXICO

Dr. BORLAUG. Senator Humphrey, Senator Huddleston, I would like to express, at the outset, that I probably reflect a point of view quite different than most of those who will testify before your committee. I think it is perfectly obvious why.

I have spent 30 years of my professional life in food-deficit nations trying to help them to do something about solving some of their basic food production problems.

On the other hand, I have great respect and admiration for the production ability of American agriculture. It is the only country at the

present time that has the capacity to play a large frontline role in supplying food deficit nations of the world with large quantities of additional food to supplement their own production; food that is indispensable for survival and for a decent life. I do not wish to underestimate the importance of the exports of Canada or Australia and Argentina and for that matter, France, in certain years.

I want to emphasize that for too long the American people have taken food for granted. The reason is obvious. Food has been both abundant and cheap. There has been no food shortage in this Nation since World War II, and so one needs to ask what is the value of food both to the family and to the economy?

I would like to approach the importance of an adequate food supply from 3 points of view: the biological value, the economic value, and the political value at any given point in time.

Biologically we can live without food, at most, for only a few weeks, assuming that one goes into a famine in good physical condition. Yet we Americans take food for granted, and give no thought to the misery of hunger and fear of famine.

From an economic standpoint the value of food depends entirely on how long you have been without it, how empty your stomach is and what the prospects are for obtaining food in the near future.

I would like to emphasize and expand on the economic importance of food, one of the points that Senator Humphrey mentioned in his opening remarks.

The vast proportion of the American population today is nonrural. Seventy-five percent is urban and another 20 percent lives in cities and towns of varying size. They have mostly lost contact with both the problems and importance of rural America. This leaves less than 412 percent of the total population on the farms and ranches, who produce the Nation's needs of food and fiber, as well as vast quantities of produce for export. Last year the United States exported agricultural products valued at more than $12 billion, extremely important to our currently precarious international balance-ofpayments situation.

No other nation in the world has an agriculture as diversified, productive, and efficient as that of the United States. It produces an abundance of high quality food which is available to the American consumer at prices which represent a smaller percentage of family income than any other nation in the world.

Over the past 15 years, until very recently, the average American family has spent, on an average, between 16 to 18 percent of its take-home pay, after taxes, for food. It has been-and continues to be, even with the current inflated prices-the best food buy in the world.

By contrast, over the same period of time, Europeans have spent from 25 to 35 percent of their earnings, depending on the country, for food. Even worse, in most developing nations; that is, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, where there is always a shortage of food, from 70 to 80 percent of the family earnings goes for food under ordinary circumstances. When there are bad harvests, such as those caused by droughts last year, all of the family earnings goes for food and even then it is inadequate, and hunger stalks.

There is no doubt but that during the past year the increasing prices for food has been one of the main "drafts" that has added momentum to spiraling world wide inflation. Food prices for the American consumer have soared during the past year, just as has happened in all other parts of the world. The upward pressures and movements in food prices in the U.S.A. has resulted from bad harvests and resulting food shortages in other parts of the world. It indicates clearly that the world (not necessarily just the U.S.A.) was not carrying an adequate food grain reserve as a buffer against bad weather and bad harvests.

There is now a furor and angry outcry against soaring food prices in the U.S.A. especially from the urban consumer, labor leaders, urban political leaders, and the press. They are shocked but none the less indignant to have learned that food doesn't, after all, "grow spontaneously" in the supermarkets. They are beginning to learn to their distress that someone puts the food in the supermarkets and that it represents investments, good management and work to produce the abundance of high quality food that they have always taken for granted.

Moreover, to their dismay they are beginning to learn, but not to accept, that when there is a large shortage of food anywhere in the world that the economic laws of supply and demand continue to operate, despite the imposition of price controls. They are begrudgingly beginning to realize that the law of supply and demand defies the economists and political leaders who try to impose price controls unless these controls are backed up by drastic penalties that no one is willing to accept except in times of national emergencies.

Most Americans fail to recognize the indispensability of an adequate stable food supply for political stability. Yet if one reflects on political upheavals in different parts of the world over the past 15 years, it becomes evident that frequently the underlying cause for seething unrest was shortage of food, which finally exploded into civil uprisings and brought down governments. Many of our political scientists, political philosophers, sociologists, and journalists haven't yet learned that you can't eat, survive, and be happy on political ideology alone-no matter how much idealistic democracy of whatever ideology is involved. Nor is it possible for a developing nation to implement development programs, including industrialization, which have the potential for improving the standard of living of its people, if the nation is plagued by social unrest resulting from food shortages.

We all want to see political stability, peace and improved standards of living come to all nations. I say you can't build peace on empty stomachs in any system of government. During the past 30 years I have worked as an international scientist with all kinds of governments from the state socialistic governments on the left to the extreme governments on the political right, as well as all shades between these extremes. I have come to realize that the problems of providing adequate food for rapidly growing populations transcends all types of governments. They all have the same basic problems in expanding food production. These problems don't suddenly disappear by changing systems of governments as some idealists would like to have us believe.

THE GENESIS OF THE CURRENT WORLD FOOD CRISIS

Now I would like to discuss the events of the past year and a half which have led to the current world food shortages and the resultant soaring prices.

Perhaps the best crude measure of the world food situation, despite its limitations, is the per capita production and consumption of cereal grains, at any given point in time, together with the trends in prices for these products.

In order to properly interpret the economic availability of food and quality of diet one must, however, also consider the level of economic development of the different countries as well as that of the socialeconomic sectors within each country, which both greatly influence per capita consumption. When this is done it becomes readily apparent that there is a very uneven distribution of the world cereal grain production.

Per capita consumption of grain and method of utilization varies greatly from country-to-country. Although the calculated world per capita consumption of cereals in the record crop year, 1971, was 300 kilos, per capita consumption in the developing nations was only 180 kilos, contrasted to 670 kilos for the developed nations in general. In such privileged rich nations as the United States and Canada, per capita consumption of grain reached approximately 800 kilos.

In 1971, the world produced an alltime record cereal grain crop of a billion 106 million metric tons. Now, that is a nice big figure, but what does it mean? The only way I can conceive of it is to imagine a Trans Global Highway (I) built of cereal grains, circumventing the earth at the Equator, which is roughly 55 feet wide by 6 feet deep, that is the visual size of the alltime record 1971 cereal crop. And, in order to keep pace with population growth-an addition of roughly 76 million more people each year-while maintaining the same per capita grain consumption, but not providing for improvements in diets by the use of more animal products which is badly needed just as Senator Huddleston has just mentioned, we must add to this alltime record production each year an additional 24 million metric tons of cereals, just to stand still and not lose ground because of population growth. And that means starting a second Trans Global Highway (II) around the earth at the Equator and building 580 miles more on that second highway each year.

But each year we must rebuild Trans Global Grain Highway I-for unlike transport highways which are built to last for many yearsour Cereal Highway I is devoured and disappears each year and so must be built anew annually.

That is the magnitude of the food production problem that we are confronted with, just to keep up with basic needs. And we must remember that even now half of the world population is malnourished.

But last year, because of certain events beyond our control, bad weather, both on the land and on the ocean, food production dropped less than 4 percent and a world food crisis resulted. You can see I am using cereal grains as a barometer or a yardstick for measuring world food production. In the developed nations or privileged nations, such as the U.S.A., the average person consumes about 1,800 pounds (800 kilos) of grain. Most of this grain is converted to animal proteins,