ROME in the time it takes to count to 10, four people will have died of malnutrition somewhere in the world. Today’s 3.4 billion world population will double by the end of this
century. Meanwhile, available food supplies per person have been declining over the long term.
These chilling statistics, supplied by officials of the Food and Agriculture Organization here, are part of the reason the
FAO has quietly revolutionized ” its approach to aiding underdeveloped nations. The daring new emphasis? Enlist the help of businessmen.
For years the FAO and its fellow United Nations aid affiliates have been best known for writing reports nobody read. Despite its $100 million annual aid budget, results have
not been impressive. With government-to-government aid stagnating-many U.S. taxpayers, for example, have demonstrated little enthusiasm for foreign aid as it has traditionally been administered-pressure has grown on
such organizations as the FAO to quit publishing and start producing.
Today the FAO, under the aegis of A. E. Borma, an energetic Netherlander serving as director general, is trying to make the change. A key facet of the overhaul consists of enlisting private enterprise to show under-developed nations the secrets of corporate success. And the FAO is gearing up for results rather than bureaucratic motion.
Work is being concentrated in five areas: Development of high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice; reduction of wastage of foods after harvesting (10% of harvested food is lost to rodents, insects, moulds and such); an all-out attack on protein deficiency; making fuller use of rural manpower; and promotion of agricultural projects that increase foreign
exchange earnings and savings.
Cooperation the Goal
In all areas, the FAO seeks to cooperate with governments, international agencies and private industry.
Already there are examples. The FAO Industry Cooperation Program has been turned over to H. C. Felix, a courtly Swedish businessman who retired with a sizable fortune
to accept a dollar-a-year job here. He has lined up an impressive array of companies to serve as the nucleus for the new program.
Last week key officials of 65 companies–some with annual revenues exceeding the gross nationRl product of the countries they are aiding- met with the FAO here. They are
searching for ways to promote FAO-industry cooperation and are reviewing projects already under way.
In British Honduras, a tropical Central American nation that would like to sell more beef cattle on the U.S. market, Belize Sugar Industries, a subsidiary of Britain’s Tate &
Lyle Ltd., is launching a pilot project to determine the profitability of raising cattle in areas adjacent to sugarcane holdings.
R. L. Taylor, an FAO cattle production expert with wide experience in Latin America, will soon unpack his bags in Belize. There he will work under Tate & Lyle auspices, having
access to the company’s technical knowledge. Government officials, too, will help analyze prospects for a cattle industry that might export meat. The findings will be available toanyone who might want to participate in any
future cattle raising venture in British Honduras.
At Yarlova, Turkey, on the sea of Marmara, H. J. Heinz Co. of Pittsburgh, working with the FAO, is helping qiawn a new vegetable industry. A $2 million tomato paste factory financed by Swiss and loal capital is already in production, thanks to Heinz know-how. It is serving as a model for broadening production and packaging into other vegetable lines. Turkey hopes that ultimately vegetable markets in Europe may provide it with badly needed foreign exchange. What does Heinz get out of this? “Our primary interest
is in establishing a reliable new source of tomato paste of satisfactory quality at competitive prices,” explains J. F. Allen, international vice president.
Other projects are in the works. Corn Products Co., New York, has been discussing a new food process that would transform carbohydrates into scarce protein. Del Monte Corp., San Francisco, has a pineapple growing project in Kenya that might provide opportunities for a cattle industry stemming
from use of pineapple wastes for feed. Swe-
den’s Alfa Lavel Group will shortly help Tuni-
sia modernize its olive oil processing indus-
try, while other companies are working with
the FAO to develop new bread materials. The
nope is that flour can be combined with low
grade wheat to produce bread, reducing the
wheat import requirements of needy nations.
In addition to technical help, private capi-
tal is also being encorag6d. Though some-
times denounced as “neo-colonialism,” such
funds become ever more attractive as social-
ist-leaning schemes in some nations founder.
Private foreign investments have been going
into backward lands for years, of course. UN
statistics say the total approaches S4 billion a
year today, and now accounts for 30% to 40%
of the overall financial flow to these natiohs.
Nevertheless, the consensus at the FAO and
in other UN agencies is that private capital
provides a fertile field for considerably in-
creasing the foreign aid flow.
Recently, the UN played host in Amster-
dain to an unusual panel of international busi-
nessmen, senior officials from governments
in development countries and officials in in-
ternational organizations. The purpose was to
explore how free enterprise might help under-
developed nations through direct investments,
even as companies followed profit motives.
“Government ministers were showing an
appreciation for free enterprise which was
very encouraging,” said David Rcckefeller,
chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, New
York, and one of the participants.
“We need and want private capital,” said
Tom Mboya, Kenya’s minister for economic
and development planning, and another par-
ticipant.
Sir Robert Jackson, British economist and
UN advisor, was here this month studying the
FAO operation as part of an investigation into
how the whole UN institutional structure
might be revised. He crossed trails with Rob-
ert McNamara, president of the World Bank,
who was in Rome to see how the bank might
work more closely with the FAO and one of
its newly created wings, the FAO Investment
Center.
In Rotterdam, Holland, G.D.A. Klijnstra, a
director of Unilever, N.V., the big consumer-
productq company, notes that many underde-
veloped countries fear they will be exploited
by Western business firms, a factor that
sometimes makes it difficult for companies to
deal directly with officials of needy, nations.
He adds, “FAO can be of assistance in help-
ing to bridge the gap of suspicion.”
In New York, Charles S. Dennison, vice
president, International Minerals & Chemi-
cals Corp., says; “The industry cooperative
program provides a significant channel for
communication and cooperation between FAO
and the private sector, which has the experi-
ence and the resources required to play a
major role in world economic and agricul-
tural development.”
In the same city, R. L. Vayo, vice presi-
dent, St. Regis Paper Co., says, “Our com-
pany can benefit in the area of processing of
dairy products, packing operations and the
conversion of forest resources. Contacts have
already been established with like groups in
FAO:”
Numbers Are Deceiving
The 65 companies in the Industrial Cooper-
ation Program may seem like a small num-
ber. But “only 100 companies account for the
bulk of the business done by foreign firms in
underdeveloped countries,” explains K. F.
Landegger, president, Parsons & Whittemore
Inc., New York, a paper making machinery
producer.
Companies in the FAO program include
the likes of Nestle Aimentana, S.A., Vaud,
Switzerland; General Foods Crp., White
Plains, N.Y., and Shell Internatidnal Petro-
leum Ltd., London. “You can’t feed people
with reports. Industry can and should play a
role in transforming those reports into realis-
tic programs,”- says V. H. Umbricht, ener-
getic managing director of Ciba A.G., Basle,
Switzerland, which is applying its chemical
know-how to FAO programs.
Not everybody likes to see private enter-
prises gaining a larger voice in aid programs.
At one recent foreign aid meeting in Latin
America, the Cuban delegation complained
bitterly that the UN and its agencies were
selling out to private enterprise. An irked
Communist Polish government has suggested
to the FAO that its state-owned enterprises
might be ready to provide aid advice to back-
ward nations, too.
So far, though, the Poles have not ad-
vanced any concrete proposals.
