The Development of Food Aid

MAC/WFY

Page-87

0230_553559_13_cha09

and write the peace' had become the wartime slogan of the US Department of
Agriculture. Humphrey also recommended the creation of a new post of `Peace
Food Administrator' in the White House with the status of special assistant to the
US president to provide a `central guiding hand' for the inter-agency groups who
were operating the PL480 programme.

President Eisenhower adopted Humphrey's recommendations in his farm

message to Congress in January 1959 when he said:

I am setting steps in motion to explore anew with other surplus-producing
nations all practical means of utilizing the various agricultural surpluses of
each in the interest of reinforcing peace and the well-being of friendly peoples
throughout the world in short, using food for peace. (The New York Times, 30
January 1959)

And he appointed a `Food for Peace Coordinator', Don Paarlberg, who had been
special assistant to the US Secretary of Agriculture, Ezra Taft Benson, in April 1960.
But Eisenhower's food policy changes were regarded as representing `more of an
effort to repackage an old concept in a new format than the kind of fundamental
reconceptualization of the program urged so energetically by Hubert Humphrey'
in the short time remaining of the Eisenhower administration (Peterson, 1975;
Wallerstein, 1980, p. 40).

Congressman George McGovern of South Dakota, who was later to become the

first director of the US Food for Peace programme in the Kennedy administration,
issued a press release in 1959 on a `Food for Peace Resolution: American Farm
Production a Force for Freedom and Peace', which he mailed to all members of
the US Congress.

The resolution stated:

many Americans and a considerable portion of the Congress are troubled by
the paradox of mounting American farm surpluses and costly storage programs
in a world where most of the people are crying for food

a broader and more

imaginative use of surplus farm commodities can play a major part in advancing
the economic development and political stability of underdeveloped nations.

B. R. Sen, FAO's director-general, recalled that the main preoccupation of the

surplus-producing countries during a period of intense discussion at the end of
the 1950s was that international agencies should do nothing to interfere with the
normal channels of trade (Sen, 1982, pp. 1989). In April 1959, stung by the criti-
cisms of the Democratic Party, particularly those of Humphrey and McGovern,
President Eisenhower urged the US Congress to adopt a `food for peace' plan as a
bold attack on the problem of surpluses. US Agricultural Secretary Ezra Benson was
given charge of the plan. In his letter to Benson, President Eisenhower referred
to FAO's efforts to launch a worldwide campaign against hunger. Benson called
a conference in Washington, DC of the five major food-exporting countries,
Argentina, Australia, Canada, France and the United States, to which Sen was
invited to take part on behalf of FAO. The conference set up a Wheat Utilization

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Useful links	The Development of Food Aid MAC/WFY Page-87 0230_553559_13_cha09 The Development of Food Aid 87 and write the peace' had become the wartime slogan of the US Department of Agriculture. Humphrey also recommended the creation of a new post of `Peace Food Administrator' in the White House with the status of special assistant to the US president to provide a `central guiding hand' for the inter-agency groups who were operating the PL480 programme. President Eisenhower adopted Humphrey's recommendations in his farm message to Congress in January 1959 when he said: I am setting steps in motion to explore anew with other surplus-producing nations all practical means of utilizing the various agricultural surpluses of each in the interest of reinforcing peace and the well-being of friendly peoples throughout the world in short, using food for peace. (The New York Times, 30 January 1959) And he appointed a `Food for Peace Coordinator', Don Paarlberg, who had been special assistant to the US Secretary of Agriculture, Ezra Taft Benson, in April 1960. But Eisenhower's food policy changes were regarded as representing `more of an effort to repackage an old concept in a new format than the kind of fundamental reconceptualization of the program urged so energetically by Hubert Humphrey' in the short time remaining of the Eisenhower administration (Peterson, 1975; Wallerstein, 1980, p. 40). Congressman George McGovern of South Dakota, who was later to become the first director of the US Food for Peace programme in the Kennedy administration, issued a press release in 1959 on a `Food for Peace Resolution: American Farm Production a Force for Freedom and Peace', which he mailed to all members of the US Congress. 34 The resolution stated: many Americans and a considerable portion of the Congress are troubled by the paradox of mounting American farm surpluses and costly storage programs in a world where most of the people are crying for food a broader and more imaginative use of surplus farm commodities can play a major part in advancing the economic development and political stability of underdeveloped nations. B. R. Sen, FAO's director-general, recalled that the main preoccupation of the surplus-producing countries during a period of intense discussion at the end of the 1950s was that international agencies should do nothing to interfere with the normal channels of trade (Sen, 1982, pp. 1989). In April 1959, stung by the criti- cisms of the Democratic Party, particularly those of Humphrey and McGovern, President Eisenhower urged the US Congress to adopt a `food for peace' plan as a bold attack on the problem of surpluses. US Agricultural Secretary Ezra Benson was given charge of the plan. In his letter to Benson, President Eisenhower referred to FAO's efforts to launch a worldwide campaign against hunger. Benson called a conference in Washington, DC of the five major food-exporting countries, Argentina, Australia, Canada, France and the United States, to which Sen was invited to take part on behalf of FAO. The conference set up a Wheat Utilization back to top Next page
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