2 Dated 20 November. On file AA:A989, 43/735/751/1, i.

3 On 17 February 1943 President Roosevelt suggested to the Pacific
War Council that a meeting of the United Nations should be held to
discuss post-war policies on food supplies (see Dixon's cablegrams
S23-4 of 18 February on file AA:A981, War [41B]). Bruce
subsequently cabled to Curtin 'I have now good reason to believe
that President's reference at Pacific War Council meeting to post-
war food policy and his subsequent statement at his White House
Press Conference on this subject was inspired by Memorandum
forwarded to you with my letter of the 22nd November last' (see
cablegram 43A of 1 March 1943 on file AA:M100, March 1943).

ATTACHMENT -

Draft Memorandum on a United Nations Program for Freedom from Want
of Food [1]

WASHINGTON, October 1942

I. THE PLEDGES OF THE UNITED NATIONS

The purpose of the United Nations is first to win the war and then
to win the peace.

To win the peace we must, during the war, reach agreements which
will determine the pattern of the post-war world.

Our pledges have been given in the President's Four Freedoms [2],
the Atlantic Charter, the Mutual Aid Agreements, the International
Wheat Agreement and in declarations by representatives of the
Governments of the United Nations.

We have promised to our own citizens, and to the peoples of the
world, freedom from want through an expansive economy with full
employment, better labour conditions and social security. We have,
in effect, undertaken to engage in a world-wide campaign against
poverty.

II. CO-OPERATION FOR AN EXPANSIVE WORLD ECONOMY

At the end of the first World War we believed that it would be
possible immediately to return to 'normalcy'. Wartime mechanisms
for economic co-operation were abruptly discarded in favour of
'business as before'. The history of the between-wars decades-
unemployment at unparalleled levels throughout the world; the
unsuccessful struggle against monetary chaos; the insecurity which
proved a forcing bed for the growth of Nazi terrorism;

malnutrition and hunger with world markets burdened with surplus
food-is sufficient indication of the magnitude of our error.

The stress of war has forced us to return to international co-
operation and if our pledges are to be fulfilled we must, during
the war, prepare to enlarge and adapt our wartime co-operation for
the purposes of peace. To achieve freedom from want will require
many forms of action in the economic and financial fields.

The more advanced countries must ensure their citizens full
employment and the provision, to everyone willing to work, of
diets, housing and health facilities adequate to develop and
maintain their vigour, efficiency and intelligence. The advanced
nations must also assist other nations to develop their
potentialities and to achieve as high a standard of living as
their human and other resources permit.

Finance must become the servant and not the master of the world
economic system. No human or physical resources in any country
should be forced to remain idle or to fail of development owing to
the lack of adequate financial mechanisms. International financial
arrangements must be devised to make possible consumption on a
scale commensurate with the world's capacity to produce.

The interest of the consumer will require the most efficient use
of the world's agricultural and industrial resources and greatly
expanded world trade.

The United Nations, and ultimately all nations, must participate,
as partners in world reconstruction, in world authorities set up
to direct international methods for winning the peace and to co-
ordinate national endeavours.

III. THE PRIORITY OF FOOD POLICIES

Freedom from want of food must be given high priority in the
actions taken to fulfil the pledges of the United Nations. For not
only is food the most essential of human needs but the production
of food is the principal economic activity of man.

We have determined to provide relief to the war-torn countries as
soon as they are liberated. In this relief, food will be the most
urgent need but we must carry straight on from relief and
rehabilitation to reconstruction and development.

(a) Health
Lack of adequate food is the sole cause of some prevalent diseases
and is the principal predisposing cause of many others such as
tuberculosis: it destroys vigour and inhibits mental alertness: it
is accompanied by premature death.

Although the application of modern nutritional knowledge to public
health is a development of only the last twenty-five years, we
already know that sound nutrition will further reduce the toll of
disease and will also do more to secure sound minds in healthy
bodies than any other social reform.

In the 19th century the discoveries of the bacteriologists and the
achievements of the sanitary reformers greatly reduced the toll
taken by infectious disease.

The provision to all classes of adequate diets would lead to an
advance in public health comparable to that which followed the
work of Pasteur.

(b) Food Deficiencies
No country can boast that all its citizens obtain adequate food.

The best fed countries are those where the national income is both
high and relatively equitably distributed, but even in these
countries about a quarter of the population do not obtain enough
of the foods needed for abundant health.

In those advanced countries where the contrast between the income
groups is more pronounced at least a third of the people suffer
from malnutrition.

In the rest of the world malnutrition and hunger is the lot of a
majority of the people. 'Most Chinese suffer from malnutrition all
the time', is the opening sentence in a report of the Chinese
Government to the League of Nations. The same could be said with
equal truth of other large areas of the world.

(c) Social Importance of Agriculture
About 60 percent of the world's gainfully employed population is
engaged in agricultural pursuits. The proportion varies from about
35 percent in Europe to over 70 percent in Asia and Africa. Food
production probably represents 90 percent of the total activity of
world agriculture. Thus the conditions under which farm people
live and work are the most important social problems of most
countries. Freedom from want of food is therefore of double
significance to the great bulk of the world's population for, in
addition to its direct effect upon their individual welfare, its
attainment must require a widespread improvement in agricultural
efficiency. [3] This can only be brought about if education and
sanitation, security of tenure and adequate credits are
progressively extended to the farm people of each nation and
continent.

(d) Effects upon World Economic Activity
The fact that farming still remains the principal economic
activity of the bulk of mankind and the further fact that there is
great need to increase food production are in themselves clear
indications of the effects which the widespread adoption of sound
nutritional policies would have upon world economic activity.

Progress towards the attainment of the goal of freedom from want
of food will require measures in every country to increase the
efficiency of agriculture, to improve farm plant and equipment and
to secure better methods of transportation and distribution. It
will also call for a great expansion of the facilities for
processing, warehousing and handling food. These developments will
create a substantial demand for industrial goods.

The solution of the agricultural problems of such densely
populated countries as China, India, Java and parts of Eastern
Europe requires, in addition to agricultural reforms,
industrialization which will involve large capital expenditures
over a series of years for electrification and other development
projects. But, parallel with the industrialization of such
countries, sound technical assistance in agricultural production
together with relatively small financial outlays would enable
these countries, as well as others, to make great progress in the
improvement of their agricultures.

The acceptance of sound nutrition policies must also involve a
determination on the part of governments drastically to reduce
agricultural protectionism. International co-operation to secure
freedom from want of food will necessitate a great increase in
world trade, especially in the staple agricultural products.

International investment to improve agriculture can contribute
materially to world economic activity before the larger scale
methods of development can be expected to exert their full
influence.

IV. WORLD FOOD REQUIREMENTS

Although information about food consumption is too inadequate to
enable accurate estimates to be made of the needs of each area of
the world for the various foods, preliminary work indicates that
to provide diets adequate for health for everybody in all parts of
the world food supplies would probably need to be doubled.

The goal must be to ensure that all sections of the population,
farm people included, have enough of the right kinds of food. To
accomplish this on a world basis would require expansion of
production of the following orders of magnitude: cereals, 50
percent; meat, 90 percent; milk and other dairy products, 125
percent; vegetable oils, 125 percent; and fruits and vegetables,
300 percent.

Much closer estimates can be made of the food requirements for
certain countries. In the United States, for example, where diets
are comparatively good, a program of adequate [4] consumption
would require an 18 percent increase over the 1940 acreage of land
in crops, a 44 percent increase in the number of milch cows, a 16
percent increase in the number of chickens, a 7 percent increase
in the number of cattle, and about the present number of hogs,
sheep and lambs.

In the Southern States over six million acres of cropland and nine
million acres of pasture land would be needed to supply the
additional farmgrown products needed for the farm families of that
region alone.

Estimates made for the United Kingdom in 1934 indicate that if
food consumption for the whole population was raised to that of
the top 10 percent (i.e. those who spend 12 shillings per week per
head on food) this would have required 80 percent more milk, 40
percent more butter, 55 percent more eggs, 30 percent more meat,
125 percent more fruit and 90 percent more vegetables.

The keystone of agricultural reorientation should be the principle
that the first duty of domestic agriculture is to make the most
economical contribution, from the standpoint of the nation as a
whole, to the food supplies required by the citizens of the
country concerned.

V. FOOD FOR THE LOWER-INCOME GROUPS

One of our most urgent immediate problems is the inability of the
lower-income groups to buy sufficient food to maintain good
health. Its solution will depend upon economic and social policies
designed to increase purchasing power and to reduce the costs of
production and distribution.

The needs of the poorer people in many countries, however, demand
the adoption of direct methods of making certain foods available
at lower than commercial prices. The methods whereby this
objective will be carried out will vary from country to country. A
number of countries had already in pre-war years tentatively
adopted methods of subsidizing supplies of certain foods for
mothers and children. In the United States a further development
and modification of the Food Stamp Plan or some other variant of
the system may prove a suitable method. One method which might
well be recommended for world-wide application is the provision of
nutritious lunch and of milk to all children under school leaving
age. If this was as freely provided as teaching and text books,
the effect upon the well being of children and adolescents would
be profound.

Food rationing is now general in the United Kingdom and in
Continental Europe and it may become more generally necessary in
the United States and Dominions. Wartime rationing restricts the
consumption of the higher-income groups but cuts down waste and
improves, at least relatively, the position of the lower-income
groups. We may find it an opportunity of developing war methods
for the more liberal purposes of peace.

Rationing in the United Kingdom is accompanied by government
subsidies to keep the retail prices of certain imported and home-
grown foods within the purchasing power of the lower-income
groups. In war this involves large sums to offset high transport
charges and high prices paid to encourage domestic production. In
peace time lesser sums wisely allocated to encourage the
production, distribution and consumption of the most needed foods
would go far to secure for all, diets adequate for health.

The most important method of solving this problem is to increase
national agricultural efficiency and to abandon, in favour of
cheaper imports, high-cost domestic production of those foods for
which a country is at a comparative disadvantage. In the long run
this would be just as advantageous to producers as to consumers.

VI. COMMERCIAL POLICY

Eleven of the United Nations have pledged themselves in the Mutual
Aid Agreements 'to the elimination of all forms of discriminatory
treatment in international commerce, and to the reduction of
tariffs and other trade barriers. . .'The fulfilment of this
pledge will greatly assist in the provision of diets adequate for
health at a cost within the reach of all by encouraging the
production of protective foods, as well as of staple products, in
countries and regions where production is most efficient.

During the decade before the present war many nations, especially
in Europe, were impelled either in preparation for war or by
consideration of defense to adjust their agricultures to
strategical factors. This led governments to attempt to secure
agricultural self-sufficiency by greatly expanding the production
of energy foods, especially bread cereals and sugar, at the
expense of the health and standards of living of their peoples.

The pledges of the United Nations to prevent a renewal of
aggression should remove this strategical motive from the planning
of the national agricultures of the food importing countries and
preclude its use in the future as an excuse for agricultural
protectionism.

Making adequate nutrition the first concern of agricultural policy
would require a reversal of the pre-war movement toward
agricultural self-sufficiency. It would involve a marked increase
in the local production of such perishable foods as liquid milk,
fresh vegetables and soft fruits, and there are many other farm
products for which soil, climate and proximity to markets give
advantages to the home producers. The adoption of sound nutrition
policies would, on the other hand, probably result in the
industrial countries of Continental Europe importing two or three
times as much bread cereals, sugar and feed grains as before the
war.

VII. INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

The achievements of the United Nations' purposes, summarized in
the President's phrases 'Freedom from Want' and 'Freedom from
Fear', will require the establishment of a World Authority. This
Authority will have both political and economic functions. Its
economic mechanisms will need to cover a wide range of economic,
financial and social activities.

The immediate need is to establish at once a United Nations
Organization, such as an Economic Council, charged with the duty
of preparing the plans and mechanisms required for dealing with
the principal problems of economic reconstruction. The Economic
Council should appoint Technical Commissions to work out definite
proposals.

The Technical Commission on Food and Agriculture should formulate
action programs designed to assist the nations to achieve freedom
from want of food. Its recommendations should include ways and
means of setting up an International Agricultural Authority and
the methods whereby such an Authority would work in close liaison
with the suggested International Bank and its subsidiary
International Agricultural Credit Bank, an International Raw
Materials Authority and an International Authority established to
assist in the development of backward areas throughout the world.

It should be the duty of the Economic Council of the United
Nations to see that the work of each Technical Commission is
coordinated with that of the other Commissions.

The Technical Commission on Food and Agriculture should be
requested to report to the Economic Council within six months and
its report should contain specific and comprehensive
recommendations regarding the constitution, organization and
functions of the proposed International Agricultural Authority.

[5]

VIII. ACTION BY THE UNITED NATIONS

The more prosperous countries of the United Nations should pledge
themselves (A) to institute policies designed to secure that diets
adequate for health are available within the purchasing power of
all their citizens (B) to assist other nations towards the
progressive accomplishment of the same objective and (C) to
commence immediately to implement these pledges by undertaking:-

(i) During the War and the Relief Period:

(a) to institute or continue the rationing of essential foods in
short supply for as long after the war as is necessary to enable
the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration
adequately to perform its function of relieving distress in the
homes of the nationals of both the victor and vanquished powers;

(b) to stimulate the production of such protective foods as can be
readily processed and stored until the war is over;

(c) to take appropriate action to secure a more equitable
distribution of food within their own territories, subject to the
need to provide food to maintain the war effort and to provide
stockpiles for post-war relief;

(ii) After the Immediate Post-war Relief Period:

(a) to adopt such social and agricultural policies as shall ensure
in the advanced countries the attainment of the goal of diets
adequate for health for all within a five-year period and, in the
less advanced, the progressive attainment of this goal;

(b) to institute international action to make available to the
backward countries financial and technical assistance for the
development and reorientation of agriculture and the improvement
of the nutrition of their people.

IX. THE TIME FACTOR

The necessity for immediate action cannot be over-emphasized. We
must act now if we are to avoid the risk of losing the peace.

Our own peoples, the enslaved peoples of Europe and Asia and also
many people in enemy countries long to know what use the United
Nations will make of their victory. This knowledge is the
ammunition of psychological warfare. Its provision and effective
use will shorten the war.

The end of the war will find all peoples impatient for a return to
peace conditions. The United Nations must be ready with measures
and organizations to carry out their pledges, otherwise national
legislatures may adopt ill-considered, short-sighted and
nationalistic policies and vested interests will re-entrench
themselves.

Our programs for the actions to be taken during each of the three
periods of war, relief and reconstruction should all be put
forward now on behalf of the United Nations.

Although, owing to the exigencies of war, the United States and
the British Commonwealth are in a more favourable position than
other countries, now more grievously oppressed by aggressors, to
make major contributions to the preparation for post-war
reconstruction, there must be no attempt to impose an Anglo-
American way of life on the world.

We look forward to a co-operative World Commonwealth to which
every nation will make its individual contribution, in which
variety of culture will be matched by unity of purpose to secure
for all the four essential freedoms, and the right to participate
in, and contribute freely to, international counsels for the
future welfare of mankind.

[AA:A989, 43/735/658]

1 The original was annotated 'Prepared by a group of United States
and British Commonwealth officials, economists and medical
scientists'.

2 See Document 42, note 6.

3 The original was here annotated: 'The use of the term
"agricultural efficiency" throughout this Memorandum does not
necessarily imply modern mechanized or commercial farming; family
sized farms are more efficient in industrialized and densely
populated regions and many areas require a great increase in
subsistence farming.'
4 The original was here annotated: 'The basis taken has been that
called "the best adapted diet", i.e. a low-cost diet to all low-
income families, a moderate-cost diet to all families with
moderate incomes and a liberal diet to all high-income families.'
5 The suggested functions of this authority were set out in
Appendix E to this memorandum. All appendixes are on file AA:A989,
43/735/658.