Feeding the Future: School Lunch Programs as Global Social Policy by Jennifer Geist Rutledge

Author:Jennifer Geist Rutledge [Rutledge, Jennifer Geist]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Public Policy, Education, Children's Studies, Agriculture & Food Policy, Modern, Social Policy, Social Science, 20th Century, Administration, Political Science, History, Poverty & Homelessness, General
ISBN: 9780813573335
Google: HQ_jDAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 27837799
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Published: 2016-05-11T00:00:00+00:00

Precursors to the World Food Programme

While the United States was moving forward on its own food aid programs, the international community as a whole was also moving toward more constructive uses of food aid. There were two attempts to form an international food aid organization before the WFP was formed. The first was a proposal from the director-general of the FAO, Sir John Boyd Orr, in 1946. Boyd Orr recommended a series of actions to deal with the world’s food problems. He proposed, in a general way, a World Food Board that would work to increase “the productive power of the great masses of people in the underdeveloped worlds” as well as “enable farmers in the highly developed areas to go ahead producing for the world’s needs without the fear and the fact of surpluses and ruinous prices” (FAO 1946, 12). Boyd Orr argued that this could best be accomplished under the auspices of the U.N., and he suggested that loans to increase production, technical assistance for farming projects, and an international food storage system were the essential elements of a World Food Board. However, his attempt to “reconcile the interests of producers and consumers of agriculture and trade” was not approved, largely due to the “power of sovereignty and self-interest” (Singer, Wood, and Jennings 1987, 27); countries wanted to maintain control over their agricultural products and pricing. Further, the Soviet Union was not in favor of this proposal, as it was “cynically suspicious” that such an organization would primarily be used to promote U.S. foreign policy interests (Shaw 2007, 27).

In 1955 M. Ezekiel’s study “Uses of Agricultural Surpluses to finance Economic Development in Under-Developed Countries” was published by the FAO and it explored, using India as a case study, the way food could help promote economic development. It was the first study to systematically link food aid and economic development and, strikingly, shifted the focus from reducing surpluses in developed countries to using surpluses to aid other countries. This study inspired the second attempt to create an international food aid organization, which was proposed in 1956 by Senator Humphrey in the United States. Humphrey, concerned with the problem of world hunger and the relationship between hunger, peace, and development, brought two resolutions to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations suggesting the creation of a World Food Bank and/or an International Food and Raw Materials Reserve. These were debated in a subcommittee of the Committee on Foreign Relations and Senator Humphrey took a leading role in discussing these resolutions.8 The first resolution, Senate Resolution 85, urged the president to consult with the United Nations to make a food bank, modeled after the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, from which member nations could borrow food or fibers.9 The second resolution, Senate Resolution 86, asked the president to consult with the United Nations in order to establish a reserve to store excess farm products and other raw materials in order to avoid price fluctuations. Both of these resolutions were designed, in

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