644 



2. The use of U.S. agricultural surpluses abroad as an instrument 

 of diplomacy presents increasingly awkward and complicated prob- 

 lems of balancing such factors as — 



(a) Domestic U.S. prices of farm products ; 



(b) Specific quantitative requirements of countries for U.S. 

 aid; 



(c) Humanitarian considerations of urgent need, and the de- 

 sirability of maintaining emergency reserves of food stocks; 



(d) The question of obligations of nations receiving U.S. aid in 

 the form of agricultural surpluses ; ^ 



(e) Distinctions between "assistance" and "dumping"; and 

 (/) Effects of U.S. food contributions on the agricultural econ- 

 omies of developing nations. 



3. The need also exists to encourage increased agricultural produc- 

 tivity in developing countries to provide an agricultural surplus for 

 export against the purchase of industrial and social overhead capital, 

 and to enable labor in these countries to leave the farm to accept indus- 

 trial employment. This concept is firmly associated with that of bal- 

 anced economic growth. Involved also is the question of devising or 

 applying agricultural technology in these countries. On this subject, 

 the President's Task Force on Science Policy has warned : 



Advanced agricultural techniques which are of great imi>ortance in the United 

 States may have little or no effectiveness in a country where the pointed stick is 

 one of the most widely used farm implements. 



The Task Force believes that much greater emphasis must be placed on the 

 transfer of research and development capabilities, rather than of technology it- 

 self, if we hope to increase the effectiveness of our assistance to underdeveloped 

 countries. We must place stress on the transfer of methods for technical research 

 and education within the ethnic and environmental framework of the receiving 

 country itself, rather than within our framework.*^ 



4. The impact on the euAironment of measures to increase agricul- 

 tural productivity raises another set of questions. Whether couched in 

 J(;ffersonian terms or in those of contemporary "environmentalists," 

 objections can be foreseen to the application abroad of technologies 

 judged injurious in the United States. For example, one report of the 

 President's Science Advisory Committee urged restraint in the use 

 of pesticides as "toxic to beneficial plants and animals, including man" 

 while another called for a sixfold increase in U.S. shipments of these 

 chemicals to the developing world.^^ 



There are many other questions concerning the interaction of farm 

 technology, and resulting agricultural productivity, with diplomacy. 

 What diplomatic consequences might be foreseen for possible break- 

 throughs in the technology of tropical agriculture, that might yield 

 vast increases in foods from tropical rain forests ? How dependent is 

 the world's second-largest nation, India, on relief shipments of T"''.S, 

 food, and what are the effects of this reliance on U.S. foreign policy 

 goals and decisions? To what extent is food a legitimate instrument 

 of foreign policy; is it — like atomic weapons — too decisive and 



«' U.S. The President's Task Force on Science Policy." "Science and Technolog.v : Tools 

 for Progress."' The Report of the President's Task Force on Science Policy." (Washing- 

 ton, U.S. Government Printing Office, April 1970), page 41. 



«» Chapter Fifteen. "The Insecticide. Fungicide and Rodentlcide Act of 1947." In U.S. 

 Congress. House. Committee on Science and Astronautics. "Technical Information for 

 Congress." Report to the Subcommittee on Scienx?e, Research, and Development of the. . . . 

 91st Congress, first session. Prepared b.v The Science Policy Research Division, Legislative 

 Reference Service. Library of Congress. April 25. 1969. House Document No. 91-137. 

 (Washington, U,S. Government Printing Office, 1969), page 409. 



