U.S. J sent. of State Corfils edence Agricultural Planning JX 232 ·A48 Series for WASHINGTON: 1945 Peace and Future Prosperity UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE PUBLICATION 2376 CONFERENCE SERIES 77 Reprinted from the BULLETIN of July 8, 1945. DEPOSITED BY THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA OCT 29 '45 JX A4Y Agricultural Planning 77 но, for Peace and Future Prosperity' S OLUTION of the numerous pressing post-war farm problems of the Americas will command attention of farm leaders, scientists, administrators, and governing officials of the Western Hemisphere at the Third Inter-American Conference on Agriculture in Caracas, Venezuela, July 24. The Caracas gathering will be a "working" meeting. Many of the questions the delegates will consider have been discussed at the two previous inter-American conferences, but assurance of United Nations victory in the world struggle against oppression has emphasized the need for the early settlement of those questions. Hence, the sessions beginning July 24 will attempt to translate certain basic and commonly recognized principles into a positive program. Farmers of the Americas will be looking to their leaders to provide them, through this Conference, with "guideposts on the road to reconversion" of hemispheric agriculture from a wartime to a peacetime basis. The Conference's opening date appropriately falls on the birthday of Simón Bolívar, South America's great liberator, who was born in Caracas 162 years ago. Conference Agenda The Conference agenda, developed in advance by the Organizing Committee in Venezuela and by 1 The material for this article was prepared in collaboration with Mr. Clarke L. Willard, Assistant Chief of the Division of International Conferences, Office of Departmental Administration, Department of State, and Dr. Louis C. Nolan of the Office of Foreign Agricultural Rela tions, Department of Agriculture. 1 661912-45 the Pan American Union, will include discussion of six major topics by groups operating as separate round-table committees. The recommendations of each group will be presented for review and adoption at the Conference's closing session. These major topics, chosen because of their vital interest to all Western Hemisphere farmers, will be: I. Agricultural Credit The first section of the Conference agenda will be devoted to the possibility of expanding present agricultural credit facilities to meet farmers' needs. Present credit facilities and programs will be examined thoroughly by a working group, and special attention given to the potential significance of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, proposed at the Bretton Woods Conference, for assisting in agricultural advancement in the Americas through reconstruction and development loans. II. Post-War Crop Adjustments A survey will be made of the present status and future prospects for the production, utilization, and distribution of major crops such as wheat, coffee, cotton, sugar, and rice-all important to world trade and the strategic crops for essential war use, such as rubber, cinchona (quinine), and the insecticide plants, production of which has been stimulated in the Western Hemisphere during the war years. Some of the foregoing crops, in world-supply surplus before the war, have been subjects of international agreements designed to stabilize the market. These existing international agreements will be reviewed, particularly to establish any general principles or practices which have been developed as a result of experience, and which would provide useful guidance in the continuance of these agreements or the application of this type of measure to other commodities. It will be recalled that the |