of trade. On the contrary, trade should be considered as a means of bringing
sufficient food and other necessities for a full life within the reach of people.
The starting point for policy depended on what the aim was. If the welfare of
people was the objective, the provision of food, the first essential of life, should be
the first goal. Beginning with food had the advantage of affording a definite and
limited objective. Taking into account dietary habits, the amount of food needed
for health could be estimated. (A preliminary survey had been made by FAO and
targets set up as a first step for improved nutrition in the first world food survey of
1946.) The two viewpoints, one concerned primarily with trade and the other with
adequate food supplies, were different aspects of the same objective, which was
`prosperity'. Trade sought outlets for commodities in new and enlarged markets,
which were often hard to find. Setting improved nutrition as a goal provided
enormous new markets, not limited to food alone. It also furnished a motivation
that had profound human appeal.
of nutrition of its people up to the health standard, as member nations agreed
to do in accepting FAO's constitution, and adjusted its agricultural policy to that
end, there would need to be an expansion of food supplies, even in the best
fed countries. The additional food production required was so great that it could
hardly be attained, unless production were progressively co-ordinated on a world
scale. With such co-ordination, many countries would find it advantageous to
diversify farming and concentrate on the more perishable foods of special value to
health, leaving a larger proportion of such foods as wheat and sugar, which were
easily stored and transported, to be grown in areas that were best adapted to their
production. This expansion of agriculture would accelerate the development of
mechanization and expand the market for agricultural equipment of all kinds, for
fertilizers, and for facilities for storing and transporting food. In the developing
countries, there was also need for machinery for irrigation, flood control, land
reclamation and drainage. Providing the capital equipment for the great expansion
needed in the future development of agriculture would help to keep the wheels of
industry turning and to provide full employment. Prosperity in agriculture would
also increase the demand for consumer goods among agricultural producers, who
outnumbered those in all other industries combined.
difficulties were not so great as those encountered and overcome in winning the
war. The end result would be, described in language that had a particular resonance
for the time: `instead of being death and the destruction of real wealth, would be
life, enrichment of man's greatest asset the soil, and economic prosperity, which
is one of the essentials of a permanent peace'. If this reasoning were valid, a world
food policy based on human needs would provide a programme for agriculture and
direct trade along the lines that should be followed not only to achieve prosperity
but to attain `the great humanitarian ends proclaimed by the leading statesmen of