HL Deb 10 November 1966 vol 277 cc1037-62

5.24 p.m.

LORD BROCKWAY rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what conclusions were reached at the October meeting of the Food and Agriculture Organisation Council in Rome; what proposals were made by the British representative on the panel of advisers, and what decisions have been reached by Her Majesty's Government to implement the plan to alleviate world hunger submitted by Dr. Binay Sen, Director of F.A.O. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I rise to ask the Unstarred Question on World Hunger which appears in my name on the Order Paper. May I begin with an apology to the Minister and to the House for one technical error in that Question? I refer to a British representative on the panel of advisers. The British Government are represented through a Ministry on the Council of the F.A.O., but members of the panel of advisers are nominated by Dr. Sen, the Director, and Dr. Balogh, who is one of the members, is not an official representative of our Government. I regret that mistake.

May I congratulate the Government on the fact that they have now transferred the British representation on the Council from the Ministry of Agriculture to the Ministry of Overseas Development? Inevitably, when our delegation represented the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, it was concerned primarily with agriculture in this country, though often it looked outward. Now that our delegation represents the Ministry of Overseas Development, it is thinking in terms of the world, though it is not neglecting our own agriculture. I should like to express appreciation of the fact that in 1964 the Government made that change.

It seems to me that there are three great issues before the world to-day. One is the issue of the development of nuclear weapons of destruction. The second is the issue of racial antagonisms, which unhappily in many parts of the world are becoming aggravated. The third is the issue of world hunger, which we are discussing to-night. The Council of the F.A.O. had before it two documents—the Annual Report and a plan for the next two years. They are large documents. For the first time there is in these documents a world-scale statistical analysis of food and agricultural policies and an estimate of future prospects. In my view, these reports are likely to be historic in their approach to the problem of world hunger. Unfortunately, they do not cover the Communist nations of the world, which are not affiliated to F.A.O. To that I will make some reference later.

The plan which has been presented to the F.A.O. covers the two decades, 1965 to 1985. It begins at 1965 because there has been a desire to relate existing policies to the plan for the future. The problem of world hunger can be divided into two parts: first, the existing hunger in the world, and, second, the aggravation of the problem by the growth of population. So far as the existing hunger in the world is concerned, it is difficult for us, who have satisfaction of our needs for food, to realise that at least half of the population of the earth to-day are continually hungry and that the position is growing worse. The report to the F.A.O. says that whilst in the past year world population rose by 70 million, there was no increase of food. This means that there was an average of 2 per cent. less food for each individual on earth. To deal with that appalling problem is out first need.

When we look to the future, the plan presented by Dr. Sen to the Council in Rome estimates that between 1965 and 1985 world population will grow from 3,400 million to 5,000 million. This will mean 1,600 million more mouths to feed. No doubt some contribution will be made to the problem of the growth of population by family planning. In India and in other countries not only is there a campaign for birth control, but provision is being made for it. However, the greatest optimists do not hope that within these years this will make a considerable difference to the growth of world population.

When we think of the world to-day we generally divide it into two parts on the ideological basis of East and West, reflecting the conflicting social and economic pattern. But the hunger line in the world is between North and South. I suggest to the House that the line of hunger between the rich and poor countries of the world may in time cause greater disharmony than the ideological division between East and West. The plan for the next twenty years indicates that the rich nations of the earth—North America, Europe, Soviet Russia, Australia, New Zealand and White South Africa—will in 1985 contain only one-quarter of the world's population. The problem of hunger is to provide for three-quarters of the people of this earth.

The plan submits a target. But even if that target is achieved, the per capita domestic product among the three-quarters of the earth will be less than £100 a year, while the domestic product in the rich countries will be more than £1,000 a year for each individual. To state this contrast in extremes, India by 1985 will reach a per capita domestic product of 160 dollars, compared with more than 5,000 dollars in North America. While it is hoped that deaths from actual starvation may be ended by 1985, the plan says that serious malnutrition in the world will remain.

I think that all of us who have any conscience about the hunger of others will appreciate that immediate aid is necessary. An example is the project in the United States of America of planned production for food aid, though this may be modified and postponed, unhappily, by the cost of the Vietnam war. Aid must be given. But in the long run, there are two dangers of approaching the problem in this way. The first danger is political. If aid is given by one nation or a group of nations, political strings, either avowed or implicit, are there. We could meet this if aid were distributed through the United Nations rather than by separate Governments or groups of Governments. Secondly, aid may actually discourage concentration on increased production in the countries receiving the aid, and in the long term that will make the position worse.

In the plan two major contributions to conquering world hunger are emphasised. The first is increased production in the developing countries themselves. The plan's target involves an increased demand for food over the next two decades in the developing countries by almost 4 per cent. a year. The urgency is revealed by the fact that since 1958 food production has increased by only 2.5 per cent. The plan insists that it must be more than doubled. When discussing the necessity for increased production of food in the developing countries, the plan proposes a whole series of measures, including mechanical equipment, intensified modern agricultural methods, with technical assistance and the provision of fertilisers. Here it makes one interesting and challenging suggestion: that fertilisers could be produced at low cost in the oil countries of the Middle East, and could be exchanged for the meat and maize products of East Africa.

The plan points out the necessity for the transformation of land holdings—the pathetic strip farming which many of us have seen in India. There is the feudal system in South-East Asia, where much of the product is seized from the peasants by wealthy feudal lords, which discourages them in their production. It stresses the necessity for agricultural credits and mentions the use of solar energy, into which research is now going on, and the expansion of co-operative farming. There is also the proposal for the development of industries closely associated with agriculture: textile mills, fruit canning, coffee processing, abattoirs for meat and refrigeration, boots and shoes for the use of leather, and saw mills and furniture factories for the use of timber.

LORD HAWKE

My Lords, the noble Lord is giving an interesting discourse from, I believe, some document which we have not had the opportunity of seeing. May I ask him whether the plan for abattoirs attached to agriculture is intended to apply to the greatest area of famine, such as India?

LORD BROCKWAY

I am not sure; the plan does not enter into that. If the noble Lord wishes to know the documents, the first is The State of Food and Agriculture, 1966, which is obtainable in this country; and the second is The Plan, presented to the Council by Dr. Sen, the Director, of which there has been a very full and authoritative précis in The Times, although I do not think the actual document is in our hands at the moment.

If these plans for greater production in the developing countries are to be carried out, obviously there will be the necessity for financial aid; and I hope that financial aid will be given through the special development fund of the United Nations, and that this Government will contribute towards it.

I want to add just one word on this matter of greater production within the developing countries themselves. I greatly regret that we do not have information from the Communist countries. I have visited Moscow and have been tremendously impressed by their industrial and agricultural exhibition. It is a permanent exhibition, and they bring workers from all over the country to it, providing hostels for them to enable them to study modern methods which they then carry out on their return. So far as China is concerned, while we have our criticisms of many aspects of its policy, I do not think anyone who is following what is happening in that great territory can fail to appreciate the increased food and agricultural production which is taking place there. When we begin to look at the expansion of food production in developing countries, we should have that in mind.

The second major proposal in the plan is the expansion of trade between developed and developing countries, and between developing countries themselves. A dynamic export sector, the plan points out, provides the stimulus to internal development which is vital to lift these countries to a higher level of activity. I will not delay by discussing this problem in detail, but I believe it is clear that the laissez faire methods of trade must he modified by trading agreements between the developed and the developing countries for the exchange of products in bulk. The plan itself says that a major new clearing system is required. In the developing countries a first necessity is increased road, rail and air transport for the exchange of goods. The plan gives the example that at present if Senegal, in West Africa, wishes to export to Morocco, in North Africa, the simplest trading route is via Rotterdam.

My Lords, I hope the Government will give their fullest support to this plan, but I would urge that in these days of scientific and technological advance we surely cannot contemplate starvation continuing in the world for another twenty years, and malnutrition persisting even after that. To meet that need new sources of food must be found. There are two largely untapped sources: first, the oceans and, second, the deserts. When one refers to the oceans, one is thinking not only of fish but of the vegetation underneath which research shows is edible. Research into marine products is now being carried out by the Food and Agriculture Organisation on a limited scale. It should be done on a far larger scale. In my view, the United Nations should authorise, and all Governments should help to finance, a major research into the food which can be obtained from under the oceans and which can go far towards meeting this problem of food shortage in the world. Freedom of the surface of the seas under International Law has been recognised; freedom of food underneath the seas for international distribution should now be applied.

The second untapped source of food to meet the problem of hunger is in the deserts. The arid lands of the earth represent about one-third of its surface. The actual deserts are one-seventh of its surface, and they are extending all the time. But it has now been proved definitely that much of the desert can be transformed and can produce food. This year I was compelled to remain for two months in Algeria on the site of an experiment in the re-afforestation of the desert. Miss Campbell-Purdie is there proving her theory that it is possible to establish a green belt on arid land between fertility and desert to prevent erosion from the desert, and to form a base of trees and grain from which the desert itself can be attacked.

That is a small project compared with the greater projects which are being carried out. The Food and Agriculture Organisation is interested in this experiment and has proposed to the Organisation of African Unity that it should bring together the forestry ministries of the Sahara African Governments with a view to co-ordinating their work.

I would remind your Lordships of the achievements which have been carried out so far: in the Sudan, the Gezira Scheme; in the United Arab Republic, the Aswan Dam and the New Valley; in Libya; in Tunisia; the almost miracles in Israel; the great schemes of the reclamation of the desert in Australia and America; the work in Jordan of Miss Coate, who has established a village with farms around it, right in the middle of the desert. In addition, there is the research work of the Esso Oil Company, which now shows that petroleum mulch, distributed upon desert sand, can bring fertility and the growth of vegetables. I suggest to Her Majesty's Government that pressure should be brought to bear upon the Food and Agriculture Organisation, with a view not merely to the extension of research, but to undertake this task of reclaiming the deserts with the authority and financial aid of the United Nations on a much bigger scale than has yet been done.

My Lords, I said in opening that the world faces the threat of the death of millions by nuclear weapons. The world faces the reality of the death of millions by hunger. The same power that is within nuclear weapons, if applied constructively to the oceans and deserts, could bring to the surface food which would save the lives of millions of people. My plea to-night is that the advance of science should be used for this constructive purpose, rather than the destructive purposes to which it is now applied.

5.50 p.m.

BARONESS SUMMERSKILL

My Lords, we have listened to the most interesting summary of the latest report of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, which I agree with my noble friend makes very gloomy reading. I propose to make a recommendation of an entirely different nature and I hope Dr. Sen will certainly consider it. Of course, this is not the first occasion on which we have had a debate on food and agriculture and the difficulties of making the increasing world population equate with the food supply. The last two in which I took part, one initiated by the late Lord Brabazon of Tara and one by Lord Casey, both attached tremendous importance to contraception. Indeed, most speakers at that stage, which I think was last year and the year before, came to this House and implied that the way to solve the problem was to distribute the contraceptive pill very widely, and I will say something more about this a little later on.

On other occasions we have always comforted ourselves, before this latest report, with the belief that Canada and the United States of America appeared to have an inexhaustible supply of grain in their larders which would serve to prevent widespread famine in India and places with very dense populations. I think the striking thing about this latest report is that it reveals the serious deterioration in the situation, and the statement which should give us all the greatest concern is: The combined grain stocks held by the major exporters are no longer considered excessive in relation to requirements, and United States stocks of wheat are now less than the maximum amounts justifiable for strategic stockpiling. This serious warning indicates that the world population may well absorb all available food supplies.

We are accustomed to regard the suffering in India as being, I suppose, the worst imaginable in the world. But when I had the privilege of representing Britain at the Food and Agriculture conferences after the war the Latin American countries said that the widespread nutritional diseases among their people were tragic, and I listened to many representatives telling me of conditions there. It does appear that, even twenty years after the close of the Second World War, food supplies in the Far East, the main rice eating region, have barely caught up with the inadequate production of the pre-war years. Calory supplies are still short of requirements by some 10 per cent., indicating how serious under-nutrition is in these countries, and this situation generally prevails also in countries in other developing regions where rice is the main food. I think we should try to be constructive in our approach to this problem, and I recognise what my noble friend says, that in the two decades to come the food it is hoped to produce may materialise. But on the other hand, I remind my noble friend that so often of course these predictions fail to materialise.

I want to comment on that aspect of the report which stresses that the dominating long-term factor affecting total rice consumption is population growth and the pressure on supplies of these massive increases in the numbers of rice eaters. I agree with him that we have no detailed statistics of the Communist countries. Nevertheless, some of us have been to China, and while we have no statistics of Chinese total and individual consumption of rice—I refer, of course, to mainland China—I have no doubt that her economic policy is determined by her growing population. When I was in China in 1955 the average family included five children, and when I queried whether the food supplies would meet the needs of the growing population the reply never varied, whether I asked politicians, doctors or ordinary people in the street. They always turned to me and said, "Mother China needs more children". The years passed, and two or three years ago I had the privilege of entertaining the Chinese Minister of Health here, and I learned from her that the policy had changed now that the population numbers approximately 600 million. The Chinese people are being advised to limit their families in view of the pressure on available food supplies.

On those other occasions when the debates were initiated by Lord Brabazon of Tara and Lord Casey, I always argued that the production of a contraceptive device is not in itself the complete answer. The facts are, first of all, that a population becomes stabilised only where women have been educated for two generations, and, furthermore, in an agricultural community every pair of hands helps to ward off economic insecurity, particularly in old age, and consequently a man is reluctant to limit his family. Also I would point out that the pharmaceutical industry, despite its widespread advertising, has made little impact on the dense populations of India and Asia. Indeed, the 1966 F.A.O. report is itself evidence of this failure.

However, there are still politicians throughout the world who attach importance to the contraceptive pill, and I should like to draw the attention of the House to the statement in The Times on October 31, which said that Dr. Victor Wynn, reader in human metabolism at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School, warned that the pill could be positively dangerous. Furthermore, only about ten days ago a Danish endocrinologist warned that the pill could cause infertility in children born to women taking the pill. In the light of this, it might well be that in a few years the contraceptive pill will be totally discredited. So those who in their hearts attach importance to this pill as the means of reducing the world population are going to discover very shortly the pill is no more.

But this is the Chinese approach, and I do not like to say to the Indians, "You should emulate the Chinese in this way", because in view of their relations that would be just a little difficult. But we are to-day trying to attack a terrible problem. We must think of every practical means whereby we can make some inroad into this population which is increasing at such a rate. As I said, before the era of the pill, to which so many people attach importance, people limited their families for social and economic reasons, thereby demonstrating that there are other effective methods whereby the birthrate can be steadied.

In the first place I must say this. The right social climate must be established. The Chinese Government have tackled it in this way. They direct the attention of the people to the need to limit the family owing to the shortage of food. They disseminate concentrated propaganda, and the couples who fail to respond are regarded as being guilty of an antisocial act, for they have created surplus mouths to feed, and it is felt, of course, that the food consumed by these surplus children should rightly belong to their neighbours. Surely this is the correct moral approach; and it is a pity that I saw on television the other night Indians rioting because cows were being slaughtered. I thought then that if those who had fomented these riots in India against the slaughtering of cows had devoted the same energy to persuading the people that it was more immoral to produce children who cannot be fed, they would have done well.

I want to emphasise this point. Those who were looking at television saw that mob of people—illiterate, ignorant; but their leaders had inculcated certain views into them despite their ignorance. I am going to argue that this should be done in all these densely populated countries. There should be concentrated propaganda. They should be told that to bring into the world children who are unwanted, who are certain to be undernourished—I want to emphasise the point—who may have a short expectation of life, and who will suffer from certain diseases, is immoral. This climate of opinion should be created. Cruelty to children is condemned in most countries, and I say that a new conception of cruelty must be given world-wide publicity by the United Nations, by the F.A.O. and by the W.H.O.

Here are two powerful organisations. The World Health Organisation has shown that it is capable of reducing malaria, that it is capable of reducing killer diseases all over the world, and it does it by going to these densely populated areas and creating a climate of opinion, persuading people to be immunised when, in the past, they have felt that to have a needle stuck in one was really unnatural and probably opposed to their parents' teachings. The W.H.O., however, created a climate of opinion, and I think that they should combine with the F.A.O. in this new approach.

I do not want to be misinterpreted over this matter. I want it to be understood carefully that I am suggesting that it should be inculcated into parents that if they know that a child will be denied essential food and they deliberately give it life, then they are guilty of premeditated cruelty. This has never been done in any country in the world, and the time has come to do it. Parents must be told that to bring these children into the world is an offence against the children and the community, and is as immoral as any other anti-social act. Just distributing contraceptives and offers of sterilisation is not enough. What a fuss they are making about the offers of sterilisation in India! I do not know how many people are coming forward in that connection. I agree that perhaps there are a few hundred thousands, but that is nothing in the light of the vast population and of the numbers which my noble friend has said are going to exist in 1985.

Distributing contraceptives and offering sterilisation is of no use unless the right public opinion is established. What will happen is that many will say that this is a denial of freedom. But we should remember that a civilised society can evolve only by creating rules and establishing conventions calculated to restrain the anti-social elements in its midst. Since the mid-19th century we have endeavoured to establish the rights of the community in the face of individual interests. Even in the field of public health there have been outcries against this. At the beginning of this century notices were put up in buses indicating that a £5 fine would be imposed upon anybody found spitting. There were outcries that this was a denial of human freedom. Every stage in the progress of public health has been denounced by somebody. I suggest that again this proposition of mine will be denounced. But the F.A.O. and the W.H.O. must have the courage of their convictions. They must go out into these densely populated countries and say that the time has come when these children should not be brought into the world because it is a form of cruelty.

In the field of freedom there is this one striking exception. Individuals are free to produce unwanted, undernourished children, knowing full well that they may be condemned to a miserable existence and premature death. I say to the F.A.O. that this plan, Dr. Sen's recommendations, will look good on paper, but it is something that may not come off; and I suggest that this form of propaganda can be introduced right away. I am sure that if officials connected with the F.A.O. and the W.H.O. were approached by a powerful committee, by representatives of the Governments concerned, supported by representatives of these densely populated countries, who told them to go forward and organise this kind of propaganda in all these countries, the F.A.O. and the W.H.O. would do it. At the moment they are fearful lest they arouse the opposition of people like the fighting priests whom we saw the other day on television encouraging their followers to protest against the slaughter of cows. I am quite certain that if we, as politicians, stood firm, and said that the time had come and that a new kind of ethic must be established in these countries, then the United Nations Organisations would have the courage to go out and do the necessary work.

6.8 p.m.

LORD RITCHIE-CALDER

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Brockway for raising this Question, and also to the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, whom I am not going to follow on the population question, because we have down a Motion, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, on which I hope we in this House are going to discuss this problem in great depth. There are only one or two points I would make on the speech of the noble Baroness. I should like to know—this is not a needling question—once we have induced people to take account of the new ethos which she is wanting to create, how we are going to provide the means by which they are going to achieve it. She has disposed of the pill. I am not prepared to argue about methods. But I think that this is something which has to be examined. Indeed, many people in the world are examining it. Once you have persuaded people that it is wrong to bring children into the world to die of hunger, then you have to enable them not to bring children into the world.

BARONESS SUMMERSKILL

My Lords, may I, as a doctor who has practised for forty years, intervene to say that before the pill, and even before there were birth-control clinics in this country, men and women found methods whereby they prevented conception?

LORD RITCHIE-CALDER

My Lords, I must say that I have never met intuitive contraception.

BARONESS SUMMERSKILL

My Lords, I will tell my noble friend privately.

LORD RITCHIE-CALDER

The noble Baroness should say it loudly and publicly. That is the only way we shall solve the problem. I must declare an interest because I am heavily involved in the International Family Planning. The point which has been brought out, and is the basis of all discussion, is this frightening report—I repeat, frightening report—of the F.A.O. on Food Supply in 1965–66. Some of us can put names and faces to the sombre statistics which are given in this report. Some of us have seen the actual horrors and grotesque miseries of hunger. I have seen them in South-East Asia, in the Congo, in Latin America and in other places. Indeed many of us—and we must not forget this —saw the face of hunger in this country in the 'thirties, and some people need to be reminded of this.

Computers have no compassion, and statistics do not know any grief. There are those who actually question the figures which have been given in this report. There are those who dispute the measurement of requirement of calories and proteins on which the F.A.O. statistics are based. They say that the situation is exaggerated and that there are only 300 million people suffering from gross calorie deficiency. I am quite prepared at the drop of a hat, and even in the presence of the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, to give your Lordships a professorial lecture on the scientific factors on which these figures are based. But I myself maintain that the situation is even worse than the statistics indicate—worse that is, in terms of actual human suffering, because global statistics, and indeed regional statistics, have always concealed the fact that the food available was not getting to the bellies that really needed it. This was one of the great fallacies of much of our discussion of global statistics.

We have been rightly told on global figures that up to this year the population and the food supply, at least calorie-wise, were matching up. That is now quite obviously untrue. Globally the food in 1965–66 was not keeping pace with the 70 million increase in the population. Your Lordships will realise what this means. Supplies in the highly developed countries were still being kept up; although in Europe we did not advance much, in North America they still kept up. If, therefore, there were people anywhere in the world who were enjoying a high standard of life, as was the case in Europe and North America, then it was at the expense of the populations who were getting less and less of the food available. This is a very frightening picture.

I was rather taken aback to read in Nature, a scientific journal which I respect and whose editor I greatly respect, an article called "The Big Bad Wolf". It suggested that Dr. Sen and his experts had been rather carried away by the figures and that all that we were seeing was a minor situation due to the fact there were rather more droughts than usual last year.

Dr. Sen mentioned in the report the impact of these droughts, which made 1965–66 a bad year for the production of food, added on to an already precarious situation in which the race between production and reproduction was already running neck and neck. But what was obvious was that we were now on the ski slopes. We had gone over the hump.

Even in calorie equivalence between food and population we are no longer keeping pace, and, as has been pointed out, the situation in the North Western hemisphere is, at least in global terms and in terms of world supplies, rather doubtful. I am not saying that the United States and Canada are not going on producing in large quantities, as they can do, the foods from their lands; I am saying that, because of a situation which has occurred in the last year, the reserves of food, the giving out of relief foods which North America gave to the hungry countries, and rightly so, have lowered the level below what the United States calls the strategical minimum. So acres are going to be re-sown in America on a new principle by which authorities determine what food should be produced and where it should go.

This world situation is quite intolerable. The noble Lord, Lord Brockway, has referred to the anticipatory plan which Dr. Sen and his staff presented to the World Food Council, the Council which meets as the executive of F.A.O. between the biennial conferences. This is a prediction of what is going to be the situation in terms of population, of food production and of rising income and so on in the next ten or twenty years. Twenty years on brings us to the year 1986. In that time the situation population-wise will have worsened. Here I hope my noble friend Lady Summerskill will agree that, no matter how energetically we create a new ethos or how effectively we introduce family planning in the next twenty years, it will not make much impression on the figures of 1986, because that is a biologically committed figure. The parents of that generation are already born and they are marrying.

I would stress that the situation we face in regard to population is not a great orgy of procreation. Couples are not having more children; couples are having children who survive. More women are surviving childbirth because science has intervened, because modern science has made it possible through the attack on mass diseases to reduce the deaths in childbirth, the deaths in infancy, the deaths in childhood, so that more and more children are born alive and more children survive to marry and to multiply. No one in these circumstances could possibly reproach them with a sort of insensitive improvidence about procreation. This is simply a fact of life. We intervened scientifically and effectively and on a humanitarian basis on the medical side of saving life, of death control, and now we are seeing the results. That is that more people are surviving to have more children. We want them to have fewer children. That is all we can say. Nobody is suggesting, I hope, that we are going to abolish children, that we are trying to ban population. But we have somehow to bring this situation back into balance. This is looking forward ten or twenty years.

I would remind my noble friend the Minister, and I would also recall to my noble friend Lady Summerskill, the fact that we did a great deal of thinking about this problem twenty years ago. What we got in the international sphere was a proposal by a Member of this House, the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Orr, who was then Director General of F.A.O., which was the World Food Board plan. Looking back with hindsight, if we had instituted that World Food Board in 1947 we should not be facing the situation in which we find ourselves. The situation would not be as bad as it is to-day, and we should not be rattling collecting boxes in a Freedom from Hunger campaign, if we had faced up to the facts which were available in 1947 in relation to the future population of the world.

I would very briefly remind your Lordships of what that World Food Board proposed. It proposed putting a floor under the farmers. It proposed in terms of world prices securing an adequate return to farmers everywhere, and we were remembering that 80 per cent. of the people about whom we were concerned in the developing world of that day were peasants. The food was going to be available at consumer prices which would ensure that what the farmer produced would get into the bellies of the people who needed it. We were trying to avert in 1947 the situation which we had seen so grotesquely and so grimly in 1929.

I remember the Labour Minister of Food at that time—I believe my noble friend Lady Summerskill was a Parliamentary Secretary—quoting the epitaph of Farmer Pete, a Canadian farmer. The epitaph read: Here lies the body of Farmer Pete, Who died from growing too much wheat. I quoted that in India and one of the audience came up to me afterwards with a second verse: Here lies the body of Acharya, Who died 'cos Pete's wheat was not here. I quoted that at the London School of Economics and a student came up with a third verse: Statistics prove one must be shammin'; With too much food you can't have famine. We did have too much food, but that is not even true to-day. We were talking then about hunger in the midst of plenty. What Doctor Sen's report has made clear is that there is not plenty. If you took all the food in the world at this moment, all the reserves and the growth which we are going to have this year, and redistributed it throughout the world, there would not be sufficient food for everyone. So somewhere down the line people are being grotesquely ill-fed.

This was foreseen, and it was dealt with in very precise terms in the discussion of the World Food Board. We did not get the World Food Board, but I recommend everyone here to read an excellent book called War on World Poverty which was written fourteen years ago by the Prime Minister. He explains in that book why the British Government which he represented in the Preparatory Commission as a junior Minister at that time had to withhold what was asked for in terms of the World Food Board. It has a very familiar ring, because this is where we came in. We could not in 1947 accept the proposal of the World Food Board because we did not have enough dollars, because we were in a difficult currency situation, and because the Americans at that time withdrew their support from, among other things, UNRRA, and were discouraging international organisations. I hope my noble friend the Minister will forgive me for sounding as if I had crossed the Floor and was doing the Opposition's job for them, but I would remind him that the World Food Board was put back in the Labour Manifesto of 1964. We are still waiting for some concrete development which will take care of the planning and the efforts which the anticipated plan calls for. We have to implement it. We have to show a great deal more aggressive international action in dealing with these problems.

I was concerned with the United Nations Science and Technology Conference of 1963, when we brought together the scientists and the men of affairs of the developing countries to show in terms of science and technology what we could do. We had 10 million words spoken at that Conference—I know, because I had to edit them—and in those 10 million words it was clear, manifest and plain, that while it would be an enormous advantage if we had some new discovery, some new breakthrough—as the sulpha drugs were in 1934, which triggered off the population explosion—that would be marvellous. But it is not necessary. We have the knowledge and only the intention is required. We are not short of know-how. If you take all the scientific information which we have about what could be done and to which Lord Brockway referred, but many, many more possibilities as well, you could, in fact, meet the needs of the people of the world to-day and for the next twenty years. Beyond that do not ask.

I am not going along with Professor Colin Clark to a population of 47,000million, but I will help my noble friend Lord Brockway with a population even of 1,000 million more by 1980. I believe there is no question that, in terms of science and technology, we have the answers to this problem. The one thing we have ultimately to do is to bring food and population back into balance. As I said at the beginning, the race is between production and reproduction.

6.27 p.m.

LORD SANDFORD

My Lords, I would intervene just briefly, if only to make the point that Socialists are not the only people interested in food. I think I have digested the summary of this report in The Times a few days ago, but I must confess that my zeal has not led me to secure a copy of the full report. It is not available in the Printed Paper Office, and I think that if the noble Lord who replies could undertake to get it put in the Library for us it would be a great help, so that we may know a little more what we are talking about.

I do not think there is any doubt that, second to the preservation of peace, the next greatest world problem facing us to-day is the provision of enough food. I do not know what the noble Lord is going to say in reply to this short debate. He could refer, quite properly, to the fact that the United Kingdom is doing at least as much as many other developed countries to compete with this problem. He could refer to the large and growing programme of technical assistance in which this country is engaged in this field. He could, and he may, refer to the fact that we already give 1 per cent. of our gross national product, as we are required to do under the Development Decade, to the underdeveloped nations, towards providing more food and other things for them. He could, and he may, also refer to our balance-of-payments problem as an excuse for not doing more at the present time. But I hope he will not, because I think that the correspondent in that article in The Times last week showed fairly conclusively that that problem is very much exaggerated. I hope he will not do any of these things, because all these trends towards more aid, more technical assistance, and so on, have now been going on for many years, and in this field this Government have inherited from the previous Government a programme of growth of which there is nothing to be ashamed.

In spite of all this, as all the previous speakers have said, the surplus world food supplies are getting scarcer and scarcer. The hungry millions are as hungry as they ever were, and their numbers are getting greater. Therefore it is no good just carrying on as we are: something very considerably more must be done. Radical changes in our policies and our programmes must be made. The Government opposite have promised that this is what they will do, and the noble Lord who has just sat down has reminded them of it. They have now, for the first time, a World Indicative Plan to guide them in what they should do; and tonight I think we deserve to hear from the noble Lord opposite what the Government are in fact going to do.

6.31 p.m.

LORD BESWICK

My Lords, the Question which my noble friend put upon the Order Paper covers a somewhat more restricted field than the wide-ranging debate to which we have just been listening. The noble Lord's Question refers to a very weighty report on what we must all agree is one of the world's most pressing problems: that of providing food for all the human beings who live upon this planet. But, as my noble friend Lady Summerskill said, we have covered in other debates, notably in the debate introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Todd, and the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, on January 27, many of these matters that have been raised by the different speakers and I do not think that it would be right of me, at this late hour of the night, to repeat what I said on that occasion.

This report to which the Question refers is submitted by the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, and it is primarily a review of the current situation, with two special chapters on the outlook further ahead. It is not available in this country, although we were pleased to make a copy available to my noble friend in preparation for this debate. But in response to the appeal that has been made by the noble Lord opposite I will certainly see whether we can obtain another copy and have it placed in our Library.

LORD BROCKWAY

My Lords, may I interrupt the Minister for a moment? There are two reports. One is the Annual Report and the other is the Plan for the next decade. Would it be possible to have both those documents in the Library?

LORD BESWICK

I propose later in my remarks to say something about the misapprehension which I think the noble Lord is under. The picture which is painted for 1965–66 in this report is, as my noble friend Lady Summerskill said, a gloomy one. It was emphasised that no more food was produced on our globe than in the previous year, although there were 70 million more mouths to feed. I quite agree with what has been said: that controlling the fertility of human beings is, clearly, as relevant as increasing the fertility of the soil. But that is an aspect of the problem on which I do not propose to dwell this evening. What has been said upon it will I am sure be noted and will give us all cause for further reflection. Suffice it to remind ourselves again that, if the trend continues, next year will see another increase of 72 million and the year after nearly 75 million, and similarly into the future.

The report also calls attention to another particularly disturbing feature of the world's problem—namely, that food production in the developing countries actually fell. Weather, as my noble friend Lord Ritchie-Calder said, had much to do with this and we have discussed at some length the special steps which have been taken to aid countries like India and Botswana, where drought has frustrated all the attempts to maintain, let alone increase, the production of food.

But the overall picture presented by this report is brightened to some extent by the fact that, despite what has been said, there was an increase of food production in North America, and to a lesser extent in Western Europe; and there was an alleviation of need during the last year by drawing from substantial grain stocks to meet the increased import needs of China, the U.S.S.R. and India. On the credit side, too, there were considerable increases in the world's production of olive oil, soya beans and coffee, while gains are recorded in livestock production, fishing and forestry. At the Council meeting of the F.A.O. in October, the latest information about harvest estimates for 1966–67 did much to relieve the sombre picture which is presented in this report. There should be, we understand, an increase in 1966–67 in most major commodities, and world grain production should benefit from the high level of production expected from the wheat crops in Canada and the U.S.S.R. The prospects for rice are also very much better, and the shortfall in U.S. wheat should be much less than originally expected.

One other relevant factor, which I will not go into this evening but which has some bearing on other discussions on this matter, is that earnings from world trade in agricultural products were higher in the first half of 1966. But whatever may be the variations in anyone year, or in any one part of the world, due to specially favourable or unfavourable weather conditions, there still remains this basic fact that food production is inadequate if the world is to give a proper diet to all its present population, let alone to the projected increases. There are, I think most of us will recognise, considerable difficulties, and indeed dangers, in attempting to forecast future food production, and obviously any world assessment of the problem can cloak acute shortages in particular regions. Nevertheless, I believe we shall find it most useful to have the results of the ambitious undertaking to which the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, has referred—namely the undertaking of the F.A.O. to prepare an Indicative World Plan. When completed—and I say" when completed" because there is no Plan yet—it will provide the most comprehensive analysis of this problem; the most comprehensive, I think it can be said, that has yet been made.

The noble Lord, Lord Hawke, asked my noble friend whether he could say something more about the documents from which he was quoting. I suppose I ought to say again that in fact the plan is not yet in existence, but there was a progress report to the October Council of the F.A.O. and I think it was from newspaper reports of this that the noble Lord was quoting. This progress report did bring out the disturbing long-term situation which faces the world. I do not think (and I say this to the noble Lord opposite, who said he expected me to comment on this plan) it would be useful for me to comment in detail on the statistical picture which was presented at the October meeting, since it was only an interim report and it was based only upon preliminary work.

LORD BROCKWAY

My Lords, may I again ask whether copies of the progress report to which I was referring can be made available to Members of this House?

LORD BESWICK

First, I do not think it is available; and, secondly, I doubt whether it would be particularly useful as it was only a progress report on preliminary work. It is expected that the full report, even in a preliminary form, will not be available until 1968, at the earliest. There was no question at the recent session of the F.A.O. Council of member nations being asked to present their views on its conclusions. Nevertheless, the British Government have throughout given full encouragement to the preparation of this Indicative Plan.

The Plan itself, of course, will not solve any problems. One might even say that it will not feed one more mouth. But it should undoubtedly help in intelligent and constructive consideration of the problem and should enable decisions to be taken which will help in the fuller utilisation of the world's resources. Dr. Sen, the Director-General of the F.A.O., claims that It should maximise the contribution of agriculture to …overall economic growth. Ultimately, however, the realisation of Dr. Sen's hopes will depend upon the determination of people, largely through their Governments, to take the necessary political, economic and social decisions without which maximum agricultural production is impossible. To take but one example of the sort of thing I have in mind, and to which reference was made in the debate that we had in January, there is the need for subsistence farmers in the low income regions to change or to adjust not only their occupation but their whole way of life.

I should like to mention one example of work which some people will agree is probably more important than all the paper planning and all the extrapolations of the econometricians. I refer to the result of research done by the Ministry of Overseas Development through its Overseas Liaison Unit at the National Institute of Agricultural Engineering at Silsoe. The Institute has designed and developed a simple hand operated paddy-transplanter which will enable rice growers in many regions greatly to increase productivity and their individual effectiveness during the critical period of transplanting. This tool could promote a really significant increase in rice cultivation in many areas. It is interesting in this connection that simple and practical developments often emerge from thought given by men working away from the field, where habits and practices have been enshrined by centuries of tradition. I have no doubt that other people could give similar examples of cases where someone has come in from outside with a fresh mind and is able to suggest improvements.

LORD SANDFORD

Is the noble Lord going to leave that subject now?

LORD BESW1CK

I was going to give another example.

LORD SANDFORD

Could the noble Lord now go on to say to what extent that particular unit has been augmented in order to develop this work? The last time I was there I saw some four men and one girl in an office. This is not a large enough effort to exploit this development.

LORD BESWICK

So far as this particular instrument is concerned, I understand that the Massey-Ferguson organisation have offered to distribute, through their agents, drawings of this instrument to rice growers in the Far East and elsewhere as a contribution to the F.A.O. International Rice Year of 1966. I take the noble Lord's point about the good work done by this unit. I know that he referred to this matter in the earlier debate. I did make inquiries, and I was told that they were not being frustrated by lack of funds, although they would like more money if it were available. I am sure that, if it is possible to assist them, more will be done.

I was about to give another example of the simple way in which a change of method can produce results. I remember Philip Noel Baker telling me about a community on the mountain-sides of India who had for centuries cut their crops with a straight blade and who were eventually shown the possibilities of a curved blade. This simple change enabled them, with no more labour, almost to double their productivity at harvest time.

The noble Lord referred to the possibility of making available more fertilisers. It is true that proposals have been made for the establishment of a large new programme for the supply of fertilisers and pesticides, and other chemicals, to the developing countries in an effort to help them increase their agricultural programme. The F.A.O. Council, which has just concluded the meeting in October, has set up a Committee to examine the proposals, and Britain has accepted an invitation to be a member of this Committee. I do not think it would be right for me at this stage to anticipate the work of the Committee. We shall give it all the encouragement possible.

Having said that, I would add that I do not think we should underestimate the contribution which Britain has already made in this sector through normal trade, private investment and bilateral aid. In 1965, our fertiliser exports amounted to 487,000 tons. Export capacity will rise to 716,000 tons in 1967 and to 836,000 tons in 1968. We also exported 37,000 tons of pesticides last year; and the Indian authorities have earmarked £1.2 million from our famine relief loan to purchase pesticides and fertilisers from Britain. A great deal, therefore, has already been done in this field.

The noble Lord has also called attention to the potential of oceans and deserts as food-producing areas. I suppose it is natural that, with all the difficulties inherent in producing more from the land available, particularly in countries where the reserves of unexploited land have dwindled or have disappeared altogether, we should turn to the oceans and deserts. As the noble Lord, Lord Todd, pointed out in our debate in January, there is a potential there; but it could not be made available without long-term development and it would involve a good deal of expense; whereas the more immediate problem is to achieve higher productivity from existing agriculture. Nevertheless, I agree with my noble friend that it would be shortsighted to concentrate on short-term answers. For this reason we support UNESCO in its very far-reaching programme for research into the potential of the oceans and the deserts. Also the F.A.O. have recently undertaken an expansion of their fishery programme. I am glad to say that British experts are to-day working in both these fields.

My Lords, although I have emphasised the limitations of paper plans, and have stressed the value of hardware which actually increases production, I hope it will not be thought that I am trying to diminish in any way the potential utility of an informed and careful study of these problems. As I have said, the British Government have given every encouragement to the work of the F.A.O., both in the preparation of its Annual Report and in the work it has undertaken towards an Indicative World Plan. These studies will prove to be more useful the more interest they arouse, and I trust that this debate will have done something to stimulate interest and lead to further action.

House adjourned at eleven minutes before seven o'clock.