"You Can't Feed People With Reports" -- Agribusiness Moves into the FAO
Vicker, Ray
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....
...making fuller use of rural manpower...
...The purpose was to explore how free enterprise might help underdeveloped nations through direct investments, even as companies followed profit motives...
...He has lined up an impressive array of companies to serve as the nucleus for the new program...
...an allout attack on protein deficiency...
...Despite its $100 million annual aid budget, results have not been impressive...
...Sweden's Alfa Lavel Group will shortly help Tunisia modernize its olive oil processing industry, while other companies are working with the FAO to develop new bread materials...
...Regis Paper Co., says, "Our company can benefit in the area of processing of dairy products, packing operations and the conversion of forest resources...
...So far, though, the Poles have not advanced any concrete proposals...
...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 sugar-cane holdings...
...Other projects are in the works...
...For years the FAO and its fellow United Nations aid affiliates have been best known for writing reports nobody read...
...and promotion of agricultural projects that increase foreign exchange earnings and savings...
...Corn Products Co., New York, has been discussing a ne,, food process that would transform carbohydrates into scarce protein...
...General Foods Crp., White Plains, N.Y., and Shell Internatidnal Petroleum Ltd., London...
...Though sometimes denounced as "neo-colonialism," such funds become ever more attractive as socialist-leaning schemes in some nations founder...
...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...
...Klijnstra, a director of Unilever, N.V., the big consumerproductq company, notes that many underdeveloped 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...
...Companies in the FAO program include the likes of Nestle Aimentana, S.A., Vaud, Switzerland...
...And the FAO is gearing up for results rather than bureaucratic motion...
...The industry cooperative program provides a significant channel for communication and cooperation between FAO and the private sector, which has the experience and the resources required to play a major role in world economic and agricultural development...
...The daring new emphasis...
...At Yarlova, Turkey, on the sea of Marmara, H. J. Heinz Co...
...Contacts have already been established with like groups in FAO:" Numbers Are Deceiving The 65 companies in the Industrial Cooperation Program may seem like a small number...
...Recently, the UN played host in Amsterdain to an unusual panel of international businessmen, senior officials from governments in development countries and officials in international organizations...
...Today the FAO, under the aegis of A. E. Borma, an energetic Netherlander serving as director general, is trying to make the change...
...Nevertheless, the consensus at the FAO and in other UN agencies is that private capital provides a fertile field for considerably increasing the foreign aid flow...
...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...
...In British Honduras, a tropical Central American nation that would like to sell more beef cattle on the U.S...
...It is serving as a model for broadening production and packaging into other vegetable lines...
...He adds, "FAO can be of assistance in helping to bridge the gap of suspicion...
...We need and want private capital," said Tom Mboya, Kenya's minister for economic and development planning, and another participant...
...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...
...They are searching for ways to promote FAO-industry cooperation and are reviewing projects already under way...
...A key facet of the overhaul consists of enlisting private enterprise to show underdeveloped nations the secrets of corporate success...
...A $2 million tomato paste factory financed by Swiss and loal capital is already in production, thanks to Heinz knowhow...
...There he will work under Tate & Lyle auspices, having access to the company's technical knowledge...
...Cooperation the Goal In all areas, the FAO seeks to cooperate with governments, international agencies and private industry...
...Work is being concentrated in five areas: Development of high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice...
...Private foreign investments have been going into backward lands for years, of course...
...You can't feed people with reports...
...What does Heinz get out of this...
...An irked Communist Polish government has suggested to the FAO that its state-owned enterprises might be ready to provide aid advice to backward nations, too...
...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...
...Industry can and should play a role in transforming those reports into realistic programs,"- says V. H. Umbricht, energetic managing director of Ciba A.G., Basle, Switzerland, which is applying its chemical know-how to FAO programs...
...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...
...R. L. Taylor, an FAO cattle production expert with wide experience in Latin America, will soon unpack his bags in Belize...
...In New York, Charles S. Dennison, vice president, International Minerals & Chemicals Corp., says...
...reduction of wastage of foods after harvesting (10% of harvested food is lost to rodents, insects, moulds and such...
...of Pittsburgh, working with the FAO, is helping qiawn a new vegetable industry...
...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 Robert 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...
...Meanwhile, available food supplies per person have been declining over the long term...
...The findings will be available to anyone who might want to participate in any future cattle raising venture in British Honduras...
...In addition to technical help, private capital is also being encorag6d...
...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...
...Government officials, too, will help analyze prospects for a cattle industry that might export meat...
...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...
...Enlist the help of businessmen...
...The nope is that flour can be combined with low grade wheat to produce bread, reducing the wheat import requirements of needy nations...
...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...
...In Rotterdam, Holland, G.D.A...
...Already there are examples...
...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...
...Turkey hopes that ultimately vegetable markets in Europe may provide it with badly needed foreign exchange...
...With government-to-government aid stagnating-many U.S...
...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...
...Not everybody likes to see private enterprises gaining a larger voice in aid programs...
...In the same city, R. L. Vayo, vice president, St...
Vol. 3 • March 1969 • No. 1
