Commission V:1 Subcommission 1-Movement of Rural Populations from Over- Subcommission 2-Establishment of Governmental Policies on Subcommission 3-Suitable Selection and Control of Immigration in the Post-War Era and Its Application to Agriculture Commission VI: Subcommission 1-Improving Agricultural Statistics OPERATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES DELEGATION AND ASSIGNMENTS TO COMMISSIONS TWO PRELIMINARY meetings of the United States Delegation were held in Washington before their departure for Caracas. In the first meeting, held in the office of the Under Secretary of Agriculture on July 12, discussion was concentrated upon general orientation concerning the conference, an explaration of the preparatory work which had been completed within the Department of Agriculture, the agenda for the conference, and the necessary arrangements which delegation members would be required to make regarding transportation, passports, inoculations, and similar matters. In the second meeting, held in the Under Secretary's office on July 19, the policy instructions prepared by the Executive Committee on Economic Foreign Policy were presented and discussed, together with the covering letter of general instruction to the Delegation Chairman from the Acting Secretary of State. Tentative assignments of delegates and advisers to commissions were suggested in the preliminary Delegation meetings in Washington in order that the delegates might concentrate their individual preparatory efforts on those subjects of the agenda for which they would be expected to carry specific responsibility. Draft resolutions as prepared by the Departmental Committee were turned over to the members of the Delegation assigned to these respective commissions. The Delegation arrived in Caracas in groups from July 21 to 23. On July 22 the Chairman of the Delegation, Under Secretary of Agriculture John B. Hutson, called a Delegation conference to discuss the resolutions which the United States Delegation would advance and to make such changes in these resolutions as the Delegation deemed advisable. The revised resolutions were again discussed in a delegation conference at its headquarters on July 23. Following 1 The three subcommissions of Commission V did not meet separately. approval of these changes by the Chairman, the resolutions, numbering 26 in all, were put into final shape for submittal to the central secretariat. They are attached as Appendix D. ASSIGNMENTS TO COMMISSIONS IN THE DELEGATION meeting on July 23, delegates and advisers were assigned to the six technical commissions according to their special fields of competence and individual interests. For each commission, one of the official delegates was designated as the reporting delegate, and one of the technical advisers was assigned the function of advisersecretary. The stated responsibility of reporting delegates was to advise the Chairman and the Delegation as a whole of significant developments in their respective commissions, and to assume leadership for the United States Delegation in the respective commissions. The responsibilities of the adviser-secretaries included participation for the United States in the actual drafting of resolutions in conference, the direction of working relations with the Delegation secretariat, preparation of brief reports for the daily Delegation meetings, and finally, the maintenance of a running account of the work of the respective commissions, including the necessary documentation for the purposes of the Delegation report of the conference. Assignments to the several commissions are shown in the Final Act, Appendix F. The United States Delegation held daily meetings throughout the early part of the conference, during which the attention of the Delegation as a whole was brought to bear upon the more significant resolutions under discussion in the several commissions. WORK OF THE CONFERENCE THE BOARD OF Directors of the conference decided that all resolutions and studies were to be submitted to the central secretariat for assignment to the technical commissions on the basis of subject matter. From the outset, it was apparent that the large number and complexity of the resolutions which were submitted would preclude everything except the consideration of resolutions if the technical commissions were to complete their work on schedule. In all, 225 documents were submitted to the conference; of these, 177 were resolutions and 48 were studies, some of which also contained resolutions. On the basis of subject matter, these resolutions were assigned to the technical commissions as follows: 8 to Commission I, 22 to Commission II, 76 to Commission III, 33 to Commission IV, 20 to Commission V, and 18 to Commission VI. In addition to the resolutions, the commissions had under consideration special studies as follows: 3 by Commission I, 16 by Commission II, 17 by Commission III, 4 by Commission IV, 4 by Commission V, and 4 by Commission VI. One hundred and sixteen resolutions were approved by the technical commissions and referred to the Commission on Resolutions. The numbers of resolutions approved by the several commissions were as follows: 6 by Commission I, 6 by Commission II, 70 by Commission III, 12 by Commission IV, 11 by Commission V, and 11 by Commission VI. Résumé reports of the adviser-secretaries, summarizing the work of the six commissions, are presented in Appendix E. The Commission on Resolutions found and eliminated sufficient overlapping and duplication in the resolutions submitted to reduce the over-all number from 116 to 92; to these were added 6 resolutions which originated in the Commission on Resolutions, making a total of 98 finally approved by the Commission and ultimately by the conference as a whole. PRINCIPAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE CONFERENCE ALTHOUGH SPACE does not permit a complete review and analysis of all 98 resolutions adopted, the full texts will be found in the Final Act, attached as Appendix F. Many of the resolutions are concerned with such matters as the need for greater application of science to agriculture, with intensified agricultural education and extension, improved human nutrition, better marketing facilities, and agricultural statistics. Several resolutions reaffirm the importance of intensifying programs of inter-American technical collaboration in order to increase its efficiency, expand the volume of agricultural production, and improve the income and standards of living of farm people. Other resolutions stand out because of their greater implications to future regional or world developments. COORDINATION OF ACTIVITIES OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS DEALING WITH FOOD AND AGRICULTURE AS A RESULT of the inception of the United Nations Organization on Food and Agriculture at the Hot Springs Conference in 1943, serious thought had to be given to the future role of regional institutions, such as the Inter-American Conferences on Agriculture, in relation to the contemplated world organization. The Third InterAmerican Conference on Agriculture took a long step toward resolving any potential difficulties in this regard by its resolution IV, entitled "Coordination of Activities of International Organizations Dealing with Food and Agriculture". In this resolution the American nations, while recognizing the preeminent place of the United Nations Organization on Food and Agriculture (FAO) in the planning of world-wide programs concerning food and agriculture, at the same time pointed out that the food and agriculture programs of the American nations are also of world-wide concern. The conference recommended that the Pan American Union establish liaison with FAO to assure participation by the Union in the meetings of FAO; and that the Executive Committee of the Inter-American Conference on Agriculture explore with the Pan American Union the best methods of conducting future conferences to assure integration of efforts of all international agencies dealing with food and agriculture, to the end that all peoples of the world might enjoy the highest attainable standard of living. MONETARY STABILIZATION, EXCHANGE RATES, AND INTERNATIONAL AGRICULTURAL CREDIT IN BOTH PREVIOUS inter-American conferences on agriculture resolutions had been adopted urging the establishment of some form of inter-American credit institution which would meet the credit needs of an expanding agriculture. The Bretton Woods agreements on international monetary stabilization and the establishment of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, while extending these horizons to world dimensions, interrupted legislative processes looking to the establishment of the Inter-American Bank as earlier proposed. Two resolutions adopted by the American nations at the Caracas conference tend to clarify these questions. Resolution VII on "Monetary Stabilization and Exchange Rates" implicitly endorses the Bretton Woods plan, but urges caution in the administration of the monetary fund in order to avoid unnecessary dislocations and maladjustments in the economies of nations which may have established preferential rates of exchange as a device to facilitate warneeded agricultural production or to maintain their basic agricultural production. The resolution further recommends that the American nations, as a means of avoiding basic inequalities in payment balances, cooperate among themselves to assure favorable prices and to secure markets for their agricultural products, using such instruments as may be appropriate, including multilateral commodity agreements as recommended in another resolution. In resolution X, the conference specifically recommended that the realization of the regional aims for an inter-American agricultural credit institution be entrusted to the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, in which it is recommended that there be established a special department for the extension of agricultural credit to the American countries. At the same time the American nations are called upon to create the necessary national legal instruments to implement the operations of the contemplated International Bank. PRODUCTION, CONSUMPTION, AND TRADE POLICIES A STRONG ELEMENT of American regionalism is reflected in a group of resolutions concerned with agricultural studies and the development of policy in the realm of agricultural production planning for the early post-war period. Two resolutions particularly, XIII and XXII, specifically refer to the so-called "special" or "industrial" crops (i. e. rubber, hard fibers, medicinal plants, insecticides, vegetable oils, and others). After reference to the strategic and economic importance of permanent Western Hemisphere sources for these vital commodities, resolutions XIII and XXII recommend that a prominent place in the American economic policy be given to their development; that the Pan American Union inaugurate special commodity studies and make appropriate recommendations to the member governments; that a prominent place in the Fourth Inter-American Conference on Agriculture (to be held not later than July 1948) be given to a joint study of the progress of these special crops in America; and that there be created, in Washington, special commissions to study the problems of production and consumption of these products. Commissions are to be organized as soon as possible to begin studies, especially in the cases of rubber and the hard fibers, of the problems arising from competition not only with the natural products obtained from other world regions, but also with similar synthetic products, the production of which has been stimulated by urgent war needs. Closely related resolutions recommend emphasis on fiber production in the hemisphere, avoiding restrictive measures which would exclude the use of American grown fibers (resolution XIV), and reexamination of costs of production and costs of living in coffee-producing countries as a basis for considering readjustment of coffee ceiling prices (resolution XV). Resolution XVII states certain basic principles which should govern the process of collective readjustment of agricultural production and trade to post-war conditions. It recognizes, first, that expansion of production and consumption provides the only durable solution, and, second, that efficiency of production, based upon natural advantages, must be a cardinal principle in adjustment programs. The application of the principle of relative efficiency, however, must be moderated to recognize the traditional production patterns of the several countries, since the necessities of war have induced inefficient production in some instances. 734618-47-2 |