World Resources 
DISCUSSION 
Wright: I take it that the value of this symposium is to reveal, 
and if possible to reconcile, differences of viewpoint; and in 
this respect I must own that I am frankly disappointed with 
Professor Brock’s contribution, for I find little if anything to 
quarrel with in it! On the other hand, Colin Clark has lived 
up to his reputation, if I may say so, of providing material full 
of controversial issues. There are so many, indeed, that I hardly 
know where to start. 
I should first like to point out what I believe to be three 
factual errors in the figures presented to us. These might appear 
to be of minor significance, but if one can make mistakes in 
minor facts then one can make mistakes in major facts. In this 
connexion I should like Colin Clark to know that every figure 
that I am going to quote here has been objectively arrived at 
and has in fact been checked by my colleague Dr. Sukhatme, 
who was commended by Clark himself for his objective outlook. 
Clark said that if agricultural products are converted (by 
means of their relative prices) into grain equivalents, and some 
margin is allowed, minimum requirements can be stated as 
approximately one quarter of a ton of grain equivalent per 
person per year—that is, about 250 kilograms per annum. Now 
as it happens, we have just completed in FAO the Third World 
Food Survey, which I hope will be published in the course of 
the next month or two, and my colleagues have recalculated 
the needs of the underdeveloped countries. On this basis, using 
the FAO Report on Calorie Requirements to which Clark has 
referred, it works out that in the underdeveloped countries 
the average requirement is 2,300 calories per person per day 
at the retail level, which is approximately 240 kilograms of net 
ay 
