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exciting areas of research in the 1920s. Nutri- first-ever United Nations Conference on Food Boyd Orr
tionists had just discovered that vitamins were and Agriculture.
essential to human health, and that animals or foresaw a
people who didn’t eat enough vitamins would FOUNDING OF THE FAO world where
develop “deficiency diseases” like scurvy, beri- Held at Hot Springs, Virginia in May and everyone could
beri, rickets and night blindness. June 1943, the Conference on Food and Ag-
One of the leading vitamin researchers, riculture was the first concerted international be “strong and
biochemist Elmer McCollum, led the move- attempt to address the problem of world hunger. vigorous,
ment for a healthy diet based on the “newer As those at the conference saw it, the world both
knowledge of nutrition.” The best way to prevent was faced with two major problems. One was
vitamin deficiencies, he argued, was to include the problem of malnutrition among the poorer physically and
vitamin-rich “protective foods” in the diet. classes of people, like Boyd Orr had seen in mentally,”
These included leafy green and orange-yellow Scotland. The other problem, ironically enough, with “a feeling
vegetables, whole grains, whole milk and animal was that farmers were producing too much food
organ meats such as liver. and suffering economically because they could of assurance
Boyd Orr followed this research on vitamins not make a living selling it. and
with much interest, but he suspected that mineral Instead of curtailing production by de- independence.”
nutrients, also essential to health, were being stroying crops, as the Agricultural Adjustment
overlooked in all the emphasis on vitamins. He Administration had done in the early days of
helped found the Rowett Research Institute in the New Deal, the delegates at the Hot Springs
Animal Health in Aberdeen, Scotland, to study conference envisioned a world where increased
the importance of trace mineral elements in ani- food production could eliminate malnutrition.
mal nutrition. His book, Minerals in Pastures, They recommended that agricultural production
published in 1929, was one of the first to con- be greatly increased, based on modern scientific
sider the role minerals played in animal health. 3 knowledge, and that the world economy be
Always remembering those poor malnour- expanded “to provide the purchasing power
ished children in Glasgow, Boyd Orr began sufficient to maintain an adequate diet for all.”
investigating the possibility of improving the “These recommendations are revolution-
health of the poor in Scotland with better nu- ary,” Boyd Orr wrote in his 1943 book Food
trition. In 1931, he launched a dietary survey, and the People. If they could be implemented,
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which discovered that a third of Scotland’s he foresaw a world where “the power of money
population was unable “to purchase sufficient over the primary necessity of life will be bro-
of the more expensive health foods to give them ken,” where everyone could be “strong and
an adequate diet.” The results of this survey, vigorous, both physically and mentally,” with “a
published in 1936 under the title Food, Health, feeling of assurance and independence.”
and Income, showed that the diets of the poor At the 1943 conference in Hot Springs, an
were lacking in minerals, vitamins and some- interim commission was formed to hammer
times even protein and calories. “These diets out the details and write a constitution for a
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may be sufficient to maintain life and a certain new branch of the United Nations—the Food
degree of activity, and yet be inadequate for the and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The FAO
maintenance of the fullest degree of health which was officially inaugurated at a conference in
a perfectly adequate diet would make possible,” Quebec in October 1945, just after World War
he concluded. II ended. John Boyd Orr was selected to be the
Boyd Orr believed that the health of these first director-general of the infant organization.
people could be greatly improved if they were Boyd Orr had grand visions of ending world
only able to get enough milk and other protec- hunger and poverty through better food distribu-
tive foods. And the results of his survey were tion and increased production. He believed that
fresh on his mind when he made the dangerous the only way to accomplish this was to set up
wartime crossing of the Atlantic to attend a a “World Food Board,” which would provide
historic conference in the United States—the loans to “food-deficient” countries to “enable

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