familiar with the culture, organizational structures and so on, gets the results that we had expected to get.

I do believe that the U.S. effort in training of scientists and technicians, which increasingly the U.S.-AID effort in agriculture has centered on, has an extremely high payoff for the less developed countries and is well received by these countries.

I sat with individuals from many of the less-developed countries for the past week and they are putting huge amounts of their own money in. They do want and need continued help.

I might add that having watched the AID emergency efforts in Bangladesh, which I think is an almost unique type of aid operation, that it has been an extraordinarily successful and well received effort on the part of the recipients. The Bangladesh Government officials. there feel that we have not tried to run their business. I think this is the key to a successful aid program.

I think that the time has passed when we can go in and do it for them.

What we really must do is help build long term country competence to handle their own problems. This compliance now varies very markedly by country, and needs to be evaluated almost country by country.

Mr. FRASER. Our aid in recent years in part has gone to finance, I think in India, the import of fertilizer in large commodities because they lack the capacity to produce their own. Has that been a significant factor in the utilization of the new seed variety?

Mr. HATHAWAY. It certainly has. On the other hand, even my Indian friends will admit that a big problem with their fertilizer capacity is a problem of management on their side. They are running their plants at 55 percent of capacity at the present time and they are short of fertilizer. That is one reason why they didn't get the expected increase in their winter wheat crash program.

It is that sort of thing that we can't do anything about and they can, and they must take their own management problems seriously if they are going to get increased agricultural production.

No amount of aid can overcome internal policy problems of this type.

Mr. FRASER. Mr. Mills, what about West Africa, how has the FAO existing food program responded to that situation?

Mr. MILLS. I think Mr. Brown might be able to give you a more detailed answer. I would just say in general that FAO's role in the Sahel emergency is as coordinator for the immediate emergency effort. The United Nations has taken on the role of the coordination of the medium- and long-range problems if you can divide this into categories. The FAO works very closely with the world food program which has been aware, well, the FAO and the world food program have been aware of this developing problem for some time.

I think Dr. Boerma of the FAO probably did more than anyone in the multilateral field in calling attention to the problem.

In February of this year he had a press conference in which he did spell out the problems in great detail. I would defer to Mr. Brown for further comments.

27-781-74- 4

STATEMENT OF DONALD BROWN, DEPUTY ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Mr. BROWN. As has been indicated, FAO has been playing a coordinating role and primarily a role of concern in questions of transport of food internally, questions of seeking to assure the availability of adequate seed for the planting season now going on-largely completed at this point-and programs of preserving and maintaining livestock in the area.

The world food program has participated along with many others in the provision of foodstuffs. The commitments made by the world community are substantial. There are half a million tons of grain of one kind or another. That includes so far over 250,000 tons provided by the United States either directly or through the world food program.

Making estimates under the circumstances of what the real food needs in the area are is exceptionally difficult. The number of people directly affected, the number of people requiring distribution programs, is not clear to anybody. It is not clear to the governments concerned. It is certainly not clear to the developed nations.

A rought estimate of something like 6 million people involved seems to be as close as anybody can come to a requirement. This 550,000 tons of grain that is committed and moving into the area is essentially the requirement, or availability, to provide for feeding people for the period of April of this year through the end of September or midOctober.

One can calculate the amount available divided by approximately the number of people assumed to be affected. That makes an adequate but minimum ration, if you will, for that number of people. It comes to about 500 or 600 grams per person per day in that period of time. That is, if the food gets to the right people at the right time.

It is in a sense an adequate amount of food to be moving in on a purely caloric basis between now and October. October has been the date that people have talked about because this is the harvest period. This is the period when it is assumed that there will be foodstuffs available on the local market. But I think it has become clear to all of us concerned with the area that regardless of how good the rains may be, the next harvest will still be below standard-and standard harvests in the area have been inadequate to meet the grain needs of the

area.

So there is going to be a continued requirement for grain for at least several months even after the harvest.

Again an estimate of what that requirement is will be difficult to achieve, but will depend in part on getting a better picture on what the harvest is likely to be.

The FAO has agreed to and will be undertaking a complete survey in the latter part of August when the harvest should be a little clearer, to try to make some estimates as to what the grain import requirements for the following 12 months should be. I think one has to wait until that survey is undertaken to be able to know in any more detail what the requirements will be after October. We just know they will be substantial.

Mr. DIGGS. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman could yield there, I note the presence of Mr. Fermino Spencer who has been on the front line with respect to the drought and its analysis. I think it would be timely, since you called upon Mr. Brown, to see what lateral comments Mr. Spencer could make for enlightenment of the joint subcommittees at this time.

Mr. Spencer.

STATEMENT OF FERMINO SPENCER, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF CENTRAL AND WEST AFRICA REGIONAL AFFAIRS, AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Mr. SPENCER. Thank you very much.

Mr. Brown, I think, has very aptly summarized what is going on in Sahel. I should point out however that in all of our deliberations, in all of our analysis, in all of our efforts to secure maximum commitment of food to the area and not only from our own resources, but utilizing what influence we have in the donor community, we have as our undergirding concept philosophy that we want to be sure that we maximize all of our efforts and if we are going to err that we err on the side of safety.

For this reason, a number of efforts have been taken to sharpen up our administration both in the field and here in Washington, we have added staff in the field. Presently we have a multidiscipline team consisting of experts from the Department of Defense who know about airlift and airdrop, we have some experts from the U.S. Department of Agriculture who know about ship movements. The team also has experts who know about rail movements. We have our own people in the field who are moving up and down the coast. They are meeting with the World Food Organization and world food program people in Abidjan at this very minute to get the most accurate assessment of how food is moving into the area.

Mr. Brown pointed out that a group from FAO will be trying to determine what the needs are. All of these efforts are being made to insure that the maximum amount of help will be given to the area.

I should point out, too, that the voluntary agency community in the United States is gearing up in a very commendable fashion in an attempt to respond to the situation. I think it is also very commendable that the black community in the United States has come to a point where they are mobilizing not only black America, but the rest of America to focus on this program.

All of this, Mr. Chairman, I think, goes well to commit more resources into the area and to solve a problem that has been longstanding and one that comes to the heart of some of the problems that we face, not only in our own country, but worldwide, problems of food, problems in ecology and problems of just bolstering a culture that is about to die.

This is our concern in AID. I know that it is a concern that is shared here in the Halls of Congress and is being shared by the community at large and certainly we felt in the international community. Mr. FRASER. Would you perhaps give your position with AID for the record.

Mr. SPENCER. I am the Director of the Office of Central and West Africa Regional Affairs. My office supervises the AID activity in several countries in West Africa and the six countries of the Sahel are among these countries.

Mr. FRASER. One final question for the first round: Mr. Secretary, Mr. Grant suggested that his estimate of the longer run was a little less optimistic in part because of the growing consumption and shifting consumption patterns. I did not have an opportunity to study your patterns carefully, but has that factor been worked into the projections?

Mr. MAIR. Yes, but any projection made for 1980 has a number of factors in it. I might say that these figures and estimates were put together for the worldwide conference concluding at the Department of Agriculture today. So it is the best estimate of our career economists as to what the projection would be.

I certainly agree with Mr. Grant that it is the increase in consumption in the more or less developed countries that is causing it. I can illustrate by the fact that our $5 billion increase in agricultural exports in the last fiscal year ending June 30, much of it was to Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the EEC.

Mr. FRASER. The countries with the growth rates?

Mr. MAIR. Right. It is primarily in feed grains and not food grains like rice. I leave it to our economists to say what the figures are going to be in 1980. I don't want to get into that.

Mr. FRASER. Chairman Diggs?

Mr. DIGGS. Well, Mr. Chairman, this is a very complex subject. We were not able to get the statements sufficiently ahead to prepare the kind of questions that I think such a complex subject demands. I would hope that we would keep the record open and ask the witnesses to be responsive to written questions which we could submit to them after we have had an opportunity to digest the very fine presentations that were made.

I would just like to make two or three observations in passing that are very disturbing to me.

Secretary Popper seemed to defer to Secretary Mair with respect to policy questions and yet in listening to Secretary Mair I see references in here to all parts of the world, but no references, certainly not a reference in context or in perspective as I see it, regarding Africa.

I am advised, for example, that out of 159 world food disasters last year that some 64 of them occurred in Africa. When you add to that the dimensions of the problem which have been created by the drought, one would think that if the Department of Agriculture and its policy decisionmakers had this matter in proper perspective that there would have been more emphasis on it. So that is disturbing to me.

I wonder about their priorities, especially against a background of our Government substantially reducing its commitment in these days of food shortages.

I am also disturbed about a thread which has run throughout the testimony relating to the population factor that is involved here. I think that needs to be clarified because I am very much sensitized by our recent experiences in Alabama where people thought that that

situation, that kind of mentality reflected a population factor where they went to the extent of sterilizing people.

So when people start talking about relating population control to food production and suggesting that this is where the emphasis ought to be, I get a little disturbed about that kind of mentality, unless they explain what they mean by this and also indicate that there are other approaches to the matter of the food situation.

I hope we are not leaving the record reflecting the kind of mentality that says that food production is related to population control and that is one of the principal ways to eliminate the problem.

So, I would like to hear more of a definition of terms here, particularly from Secretary Mair, who obviously is involved at the policy level. The Agriculture Department obviously is being referred to with respect to policy by State and AID and apparently by some of the private agencies.

In an appearance before our subcommittee on this subject and in an appearance before the subcommittee in the other body headed by Senator Humphrey, some people were rather disturbed that comments were made from departmental witnesses which seemed to play down the crisis nature of this situation.

When Mr. Hathaway said something to the effect-I hope I am perhaps misinterpreting the gentleman in terms of my own feeling about this matter that it [the food situation] is not critical except in a few isolated instances, it is that kind of prospective that is quite disturbing to me and in my view represents one of the real reasons why we are involved in this crisis today; because if we had been reacting the way we should have all along, we would not have a matter of such crisis proportions which would cause Rev. Jesse Jackson to have to line up vans in some 15 cities in this country to collect dry food. Mr. MAIR. I think criticism is justified and I will explain why there was not a comment on the Sahel situation in my paper. I had it there, but I thought it was going to be discussed as another item. The Department of Agriculture is concerned about the Sahelian zone. We have tried to be responsive to it and have participated in the meetings on it.

However, my function in this hearing today, because it is a discussion of the role of international organizations, I understood either rightly or wrongly that I was supposed to give the Department of Agriculture analysis of what the current world food situation is to the best of our ability and the Department of Agriculture participates in FAO and the world food program.

Most of the resources come from USDA, but the supervision, as you know, Mr. Chairman, is the Department of State. If there is any confusion on it, we take the responsibility of a little bureaucratic misunderstanding.

Africa is a problem area and certainly it deserves the sympathy and the support of everyone in solving this problem. Certainly there will be more of these, what you might call small time disasters in Africa, but they are very difficult to solve because of the nomadic type of population they have.

Mr. FRASER. You are referring to short term?