Page 84 - Winter2020

The United them to purchase surplus foods from food-ex- these policies took on strategic significance in

States didn’t porting countries and industrial products needed the Cold War. Food became not a right, as Boyd
to modernize their agriculture to increase food Orr had envisioned, but a weapon.
like the production.” These loans would not have to be
idea of repaid “until hunger and abysmal poverty had FOOD AND NATIONAL SECURITY
giving up its been eliminated.” The World Food Board would Initially, the FAO’s stated motives for feed-
also be able to buy and hold surplus food during ing the world were strictly humanitarian. The
newfound good years for distribution during lean years. hope was to bring world peace through mutual
position as Ideally, he hoped that the World Food Board cooperation, resulting in a better standard of
the most would eventually lead to a world government, living for everyone. The United States and
“without which there is little hope of permanent other wealthy nations should feed the world, the
powerful world peace.” organization’s experts argued, because it was a

nation in To Boyd Orr and many others, there seemed noble and compassionate thing to do.
As the Cold War began and the United
the world to be only two choices in the atomic age—“one States began to fear the rise of communism,
world or none.” “If nations cannot learn to co-
for purely operate on a broad humanitarian basis, such however, the motives for helping feed the world
humanitarian as that found in the F.A.O., they will never be became much more selfish. The United States

motives. able to co-operate on contentious problems like was free and prosperous, many argued, only
boundary lines, types of democracy, or atomic because there was plenty of food for everyone.
bombs,” warned the nutritionist L.B. Pett in the Some, like Frank Pearson and Floyd Harper in
January 1946 issue of the Canadian Journal of their book The World’s Hunger, even claimed
Public Health. But the most important country that democracy was only possible on a diet rich
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in Boyd Orr’s plan, the United States, didn’t in milk and meat, like that consumed in the
like the idea of giving up its newfound position United States. They calculated that the world
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as the most powerful nation in the world for could support only one billion people at the
purely humanitarian motives. Sure, Americans American standard of living.
would help feed the world—but on their terms, Overpopulation, hunger and communism
not Boyd Orr’s. were linked in a direct causative sequence,
Without the support of the United States or argued Guy Irving Burch and Elmer Pendall
Britain, the World Food Board never material- in their 1945 book Population Roads to Peace
ized. The primary function of the FAO became and War. Ollie Fink, executive secretary of the
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the gathering and distributing of statistics and conservation organization Friends of the Land,
other educational information, a very valuable explained this progression in a 1952 speech
service but one which fell short of Boyd Orr’s entitled “Democracy and Human Freedom are
original dreams. Disillusioned with the greed Products of Fertile Soil.” Fink argued, “If a na-
and selfishness of the United States, Boyd Orr tion is to be made up of mentally alert and physi-
returned to Scotland, symbolically wiping the cally capable people, the first prerequisite is the
dust of America off his feet after boarding the equivalent of food from 2 or more acres of arable
ship. To the end of his days, he believed that if land.” (See my previous article on Malthus for a
his proposal for the World Food Board had been discussion of where this statistic came from and
implemented, it would have brought an age of why it was flawed.) With less than two acres per
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lasting world peace and prosperity. person, he asserted, “hunger and malnutrition
Boyd Orr’s proposals for the FAO were occur with their chain of unfavorable events. . .
not completely ignored. Many of the ideas that war, pestilence, disease, poverty.”
went into the original proposal for the World In Fink’s view, “Freedom has its roots in
Food Board—loans to developing countries, the soil.” He explained, “As acres become too
assistance with agricultural development, chan- few and people too many, the government steps
neling of surplus commodity crops to hungry na- in and regulates the distribution of food. We
tions—actually did come to pass. What differed recognize the type of government as socialist—
from Boyd Orr’s plan, however, was that all of fascist—or communist.” From this perspective,
82 Wise Traditions WINTER 2020