World Food Conference 1974

The first warning of the gathering world food crisis was disseminated to the world press by FAO director-general Addeke Boerma on 1 February 1973. In the face of a mounting world food crisis, the heads of state or governments of the Non-Aligned Countries, at their fourth conference held in Algiers, Algeria from 5 to 9 September 1973, urged that an emergency joint conference of FAO and UNCTAD should be convened at ministerial level in order to formulate a programme of international co-operation to overcome the increasing shortage of food and other commodities and maintain stable prices (UN, 1974c). Another important impetus for a highlevel international discussion on food problems came from Henry Kissinger, the US Secretary of State in the Nixon and Ford administrations. In a statement to the UN General Assembly on 24 September 1973 he said: The growing threat to the world’s food supply deserves the urgent attention of this Assembly … No one country can cope with this problem. The United States therefore proposes: That a World Food Conference be organized under United Nations auspices in 1974 to discuss ways to maintain adequate food supplies, and to harness the efforts of all nations to meet the hunger and malnutrition resulting from natural disasters. (Kissinger, 1973)