Food and Agriculture Organization

Abstract

Marking the twentieth anniversary of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) the annual report on the state of food and agriculture reviewed the progress achieved during the second postwar decade, 1954/1955–1964/1965. In his foreword Director-General B. R. Sen noted three distinct phases of FAO's history. In the first, covering the postwar decade, FAO played a role in the task of reconstruction. The second phase, coinciding with the second postwar decade, had been marked by a number of significant developments in science and communications, in demography, and in national aspirations which influenced the outlook and work of FAO. Calling attention to the unprecedented rate of population growth and lagging food supply, FAO had warned that this trend implied a grave peril for the future peace and security of the world. The Freedom from Hunger Campaign launched by FAO in 1960 had represented a response to this new awareness of the dimensions of hunger and malnutrition in the world and of the responsibility of the world community to face the problem. The third phase of FAO's work, opening with the third postwar decade, would be a critical period. Mr. Sen referred to FAO studies, contained in the report, which indicated that the total food supplies of the developing countries would have to be increased fourfold in the next 35 years to give their rapidly expanding populations an adequate diet. The task of FAO, which would depend on the willingness of the leaders of the nations to devote a large share of the world's resources to meet the crisis, would be to assist in laying the foundation for this increase.