Food and Agriculture Organization

International Cereals Conference: Under the sponsorship of FAO and at the request of the International Emergency Food Council, a special cereals conference met in Paris from July 9 to 12. The United Nations, the Economic Commission for Europe, the International Wheat Council, and some fifty-two nations were invited to attend the conference for a general discussion of measures which might be taken to ease the effects of the severe world shortage of grains expected for 1947–48. The Conference reported an “unparalleled†scarcity of grain in Europe and estimated the world's requirements at 50,000,000 tons. Both the Canadian and United States delegations, representing the two greatest grain-exporting nations of the world, criticized this figure as an overestimation and warned that a more “realistic view†should be taken of the export possibilities of their countries which were expected to furnish twothirds of the total 32,000,000 tons of exportable grain for the season. Motions adopted at the closing plenary session of the Conference pledged the grain-importing nations to take drastic steps to conserve available local production and to insure their maximum distribution for “exclusively human consumption.†These motions also described machinery for keeping data collected on a current basis and for the issuance of quarterly reports on the cereal situation in each country.