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The current state of affairs in An–
gola again reflects this neglected
factor. The civil war there has so
disrupted harvesting that Angola is
now very dependen! on food im–
ports where she was once self-suf–
ficient. Once the dust settles,
Angola is likely to remain chronic–
ally deficient in food if , as expected,
she "revolutionizes" her agriculture
along inefficient Marxist lines.
By the middle 1960s, food pro–
duction was no longer keeping up
with population growth. During the
fi rst five years of the 1970s, yearly
increases slipped even more seri–
ously and are still slipping.
As a result , the developing na–
tions, as a group, are no longer
able to feed themselves by them–
selves, let alone improve their over–
all level of nutrition.
These developments have sober–
ing implications. In Dr. Hannah's
words: "The developing countries,
which were virtual ly self-sufficient in
food supplies in 1950, were impor–
ting between 15 and 20 million tons
of grain in 1970, half of which was
in the form of food aid. By 1975 the
gross imports of these countries
had reached about 45 million tons.
Every projection of the food si tu –
ation for 1985, nine years from
now, points toa
doubling
or
tripling
of these cereal imports - 85 to 100
million tons per year or more. "
Does Mankind Have the Technology,
the Will, and the Time?
As at Rome in 1974, so many con–
ference speakers at Ames, lowa,
spoke of their confirmed faith that
mankind still has a reservoir of
available land and resources and
that mankind possesses the basic
technology and skills needed to
wipe hunger off our hungry planet.
The biggest obstacle, they empha–
sized, was changing the way
human beings act: that is, cutting
through the morass of national, po–
litical, economic, and social con–
s traint s which hinder the
development and application of im–
proved methods of growing food .
The past two World Food Confer–
ences have made it clear that al–
though weather caused part of the
global food crisis, a far more critica!
factor has been the failure of policy
makers to understand how bad poi-
18
"The challenge of
providing food for hungry
people is the greatest
challenge of the
last quarter of the
twentieth century"
-
Dr. John A. Hannah
icies and wrong priorities affect ag–
ricultura! production.
Some of !hose policies emascu–
lated or discouraged domestic food
production because governments
supported low food prices and im–
ported cheap food . Others exported
needed food supplies to obtain for–
eign exchange for developing pet
"g lamour " industrial projects, such
as steel milis.
What Needs to Be Done?
In the short term - the next ten or
so years - food-surplus nations will
have come to the aid of food deficit
nations with large quantities of food
at favorable terms until these na–
tions can gear up thei r farming sec–
tor and increase their own food
production.
In the long term, there is no way
out of the world's food crisis until
food-short nations, in the devel–
oping world particularly, simulta–
neously produce more of their own
food while cutting birth rates. En–
couragement of population control
and wide-scale family planning has
occu rred far too late. Emphasis on
these two areas - domestic food
production and population control
- must not be neglected.
Next, government pol icy makers
in many nations need to reorder
their priorities. Too much of the
presently developing food crisis has
been caused by the failure of many
governments to invest limited eco–
nomic and other national resources
in the agricultura! sector; instead
the urban, industrial, and mil itary
sectors have been emphasized out
of proportion to the most basic in–
dustry of all - growing food. The
result is that many starving nations
have· the lates! steel milis, nuclear
plants, and mi litary hardware, but
can' t feed their own people .
Last - but perhaps most impor–
tan! of al l - farming as an occupa–
tion must be given more dignity and
honor.
This can only be done by chang–
ing social values and supporting
fa rmers with extension services to
make farming more profitable and
attractive, wi th more of the ame–
nities of lite in rural areas, such as
improved schools, safe water sup–
plies, health services, better roads,
and communications.
At the Ames conference, Gelio T.
Castillo, professor of rural sociol–
ogy at the University of the Philip–
pines, said: "Most Fi lipino farmers
do not want their children to be–
come farmers." Not on ly is farming
risky and income unstable under
present conditions, she said , but
the prevailing social att itude is that
only the uneducated must be farm–
ers because they have no other
choice .
Unlike industrialized nations that
have been able to afford the loss of
farmers to cities because of labor–
saving technology, developing na–
tions need to hold their farmers on
the soil and encourage them to pro–
duce with better methods of farm–
ing
suitable to their conditions.
The Right Technology
Next , governments in the devel–
oping wo rld must realize the limits
of technolcgy and not depend on it
alone to "quick fix" their di lemma.
Even as the food specialists at
lowa State Universi ty lauded mod–
ern agricultura! "successes" -
such as the Green Revolution -
they spoke of their technology's
shortcomings and fai li ngs.
J.
R. Pagot. director of Ethiopia's
Livestock Center, summarized a re–
cu rring thought at Ames. "When a
new technology is discovered
somewhere in the world, the re is a
great temptat ion to want to have it
adopted on a worldwide scale. But
very often, t ransfers--of technology
fail utterly." Technology, confer–
ence participants agreed, must be
adapted to people, not people to
technology.
As it turns out, conference lead–
ers said that mankind needs much
mo re time and much greater re–
search to adapt new find ings and
technologies - such as hybrid
The
PLAIN TRUTH November 1976