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The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

H. Belshaw
H. Belshaw
Affiliation:
H. Belshaw, Professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of California, was Secretary of the Committee on Marketing at the first FAO Conference. He was formerly Professor of Economics and Dean of the Faculty of Commerce atAuckland University College, and has also served as International Research Secretary of the Institute of Pacific Relations.
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Extract

One of the first of the specialized agencies of the United Nations to become active, the Food and Agriculture Organization has elicited interest beyond the specialized field of agricultural economists. Attempting as it does to solve one of the very basic problems of the world, that of an adequate food supply, the organization represents a significant and hopeful international attempt to create a world in which there may actually exist “freedom from want.” The objectives of FAO, as formally expressed in the preamble to the constitution, read as follows:

“The nations accepting this constitution being determined to promote the common welfare by furthering separate and collective action on their part for the purpose of raising levels of nutrition and standards of living of the people under their jurisdiction, securing improvements in the efficiency of the production of all food and agricultural products, bettering the conditions of rural populations, and thus contributing toward an expanding world economy, hereby establish the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.”

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , June 1947 , pp. 291 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1947

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References

1 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, World Food Survey, Washington, July, 1946, p. 18.

2 Theodore W. Schults, Agriculture in an Unstable Economy, p. 80, New York, 1945, quotes a report of the U. S. Department of Agriculture which estimates enormous potentialities of increased production in the United States, provided that the incentives were sufficiently powerful. There is no doubt also that there are considerable potentialities in other parts of the world.

3 Such, for example, as is advocated by Mukerjee, Radhakamal in Races, Lands and Food, Dryden Press, 1946.Google Scholar

4 For a fuller discussion see the writer's “Foundation of Rural Welfare,” International Labor Review, VI, No. 3, March, 1945.

5 The Report of the FAO Commission on World Food Proposals, Washington, D. C., February 1947, strongly urges the importance of such reports in every field, but especially in relation to commodity agreements. Cf., for example, p. 52–53.

6 Report of First Session of the FAO Conference, p. 85.

7 Report of First Session of the FAO Conference, p. 84.

8 Introduction by Howard S. Piquot to “Text of the Constitution of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations,” International Conciliation, p. 418, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, New York, June, 1945.

9 Report of the FAO Preparatory Commission, p. 50–55, especially p. 55.

10 For a full discussion cf. Proposal for a World Food Board: Report to the Second Session of the Conference, Washington, Oct. 1, 1946; and Standing Advisory Committee on Economics and Marketing, First Report to the Director-General, Con.2/Ec.2., Copenhagen, August 28, 1946.

11 For the full proposals cf. Suggested Charter for an International Trade Organization of the United Nations, U. S. Department of State, Washington, September 1946, especially pp. 29–34, and amendments in the (unofficial) Preliminary copy of Re-draft Charter for an International Trade Organization, U. S. Department of State, Washington, December 1946, pp. 52–61.

12 Preliminary copy of Re-draft, Article 47.

13 Report of the FAO Preparatory Commission on World Food Proposals. Washington, February 1947, especially p. 21–30 and 50–55.

14 Proposals for a World Food Board, p. 4–5.

15 Suggested Charter, Article 41.

16 Report of the FAO Preparatory Commission on World Food Proposals, p. 22.

17 Report of the FAO Preparatory Commission on World Food Proposals, p. 53. It is not clear what the Preparatory Commission had in mind in its reference to Commodity Councils.

18 Report of Preparatory Commission, p. 29.