National Food Reserves in Developing Countries

Thus, the focus moved from the perspective of the potential scope and limitations of a world food reserve to the roles that national food reserves might play in developing countries. A working party had already been set up by the CSD to study the possible use of surplus agricultural commodities in building up national reserves and submitted its report in June 1957.28 The FAO report on national food reserves began with a definition of such reserves for the purpose of the report as ‘stocks held or controlled by governments on a continuous basis and subject to replenishment within reasonable periods’ (FAO, 1958b). Three main roles were identifies for such stocks: as a contingency against local food shortages, transport problems and other difficulties in internal distribution; as a reserve against emergencies and other major unforeseen shortages; and as a means to thwart hoarding and prevent excessive price increases. It excluded stocks in private hands, or those held by governments for export or for strategic purposes. National food reserves were thus only part of the stocks held by a national community. Every community should hold some stocks but not every government decided to hold food reserves.