Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 30 May 1978

Vol. 307 No. 1

Food Aid Convention 1971: Motion .

Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (Mr. D. Andrews)

: I move:

That Dáil Éireann approves the Protocol for the Fourth Extension of the Food Aid Convention 1971 which has been laid before the Dáil.

The Food Aid Convention 1971, which is part of the International Wheat Agreement, was originally established for a period of three years which expired on 30 June 1974. Under the terms of the Treaty of Accession to the European Communities, Ireland was obliged to accede to the Food Aid Convention because the original member states and the European Economic Community as such were parties to it. We did so in June 1973. In June 1974 and June 1975, with the approval of Dáil Éireann, we deposited Declarations of Provisional Application of Protocols for one-year extensions of the convention. In 1976, again with Dáil approval, we deposited a Declaration of Provisional Application of a Protocol for a further two year extension of the convention until 30 June 1978.

A recent conference under the auspices of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development was held in Geneva for the purpose of establishing a new Food Aid Convention. However, the conference failed to complete the necessary arrangements in time and will now be re-convened in September. Meanwhile, in order to maintain a food aid programme for developing countries, the Food Aid Committee—which administers the Food Aid Convention—decided that the present convention should be extended for a further year. On 23 March, the Council of Ministers decided that the member states of the Community should participate in this one year extension and accordingly Ireland, together with our EEC partners, signed the Protocol for the Fourth Extension of the Food Aid Convention on 17 May 1978. Given Dáil approval, Ireland will have until 23 June to deposit the final instruments of ratification.

The objective of the Food Aid Convention is to carry out a food aid programme in cereals, mainly wheat, for the benefit of developing countries. The countries party to the convention, apart from the Community, are Argentina, Australia, Canada, Finland, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland and the USA. Under the convention and its protocols the Community has undertaken to supply 1,287,000 tonnes of cereals as its minimum annual contribution in the form of wheat, coarse grains or derivative products suitable for human consumption. This contribution is discharged partly by the Community from their own resources and partly by the member states in accordance with a fixed scale. For 1978-79 Ireland's share is 0.54 per cent of that part discharged by the member states, which amounts to 3,060 tonnes.

Ireland's national contribution under the Food Aid Convention is channelled through the World Food Programme and, in the current year, the Government have allocated a sum of £500,000 in the Vote for the Department of Agriculture for the discharge of this obligation.

The provision of a food-aid programme in cereals for the benefit of developing countries is to be of major importance in the field of development assistance. Unfortunately, food production in these countries falls well below requirements due to a combination of inadequate agricultural development, international economic dislocation and natural disasters. The international community has, however, begun to recognise that priority must now be given to increased and more efficient agricultural production in the developing countries themselves. The recent establishment of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, to which the Government have pledged a sum of £570,000 over a three-year period, is a significant step in this direction. The fund is now operational and should do much to tackle these vast and serious problems of underdevelopment. In the meantime, however, it is generally recognised that short and medium-term programmes of food aid are indispensable if many more millions of people in the Third World are not to become the victims of starvation and disease. The Government, therefore, fully support the further extension of the Food Aid Convention and accordingly I recommend the motion to the House.

Mr. R. Ryan

: I am sure the Minister of State anticipates our agreement from the Opposition benches to this motion. However, I should like to use the opportunity to make a few brief remarks in support of the motion. Small and all as is Ireland's aid to the developing, hungry Third World, it is important that we make our contribution. This contribution, under the Food Aid Convention, is one of the smaller contributions we now make. We are making more significant forms of assistance available in other sectors. I was particularly glad that the Minister of State mentioned what I would regard as the more positive aspect of our aid, that is, to give technological advice and specific assistance to helping the underdeveloped world to develop its own capacity to feed itself.

In a country like ours, which suffered for over a century from the serious consequences of a natural disaster affecting our principal food supply, of course we should be immediately and very significantly touched by natural disasters which afflict particularly the arid countries of the world, as a consequence of which sometimes tens of millions of people can be plunged into conditions of most appalling hunger and malnutrition. This is not an unusual phenomenon.

Hardly a year passes by that there are not serious natural disasters affecting hundreds of thousands and, indeed, unfortunately, millions and tens of millions of people. Because they are remote in far-flung parts of the world whose names we sometimes have difficulty even in pronouncing it takes a great deal of effort for people here to comprehend the degree of misery which these natural disasters can generate. Were it not for the fact that we have so many hundreds and thousands of Irish people abroad assisting the needy—because of their personal dedication to bringing physical and spiritual aid to the less well-off in the world—we would probably know a great deal less notwithstanding the very significant strides that have been made in the area of international communications.

There is not in an economic way a direct benefit to Ireland arising out of its participation in the Food Aid Convention because, as the Minister of State pointed out, the Food Aid Convention is an extension of the International Wheat Agreement which distributes food gains from those countries which have a surplus to export. It is very seldom that Ireland finds itself in that position. We had a temporary surplus of barley last year but, by and large, we are importers of food grains. It is an appalling comment on man's inability sensibly to order his own affairs. It is also a reflection on man's inhumanity to man that there can be in the developed, better-off sections of the world, huge surpluses of grain sometimes destroyed or fed to animals rather than being distributed to tens of millions of people who could benefit greatly by their consumption.

We should not consider the need for aid to arise only when famine and extreme suffering arise. There are nearly 200 million people in the world who do not receive at any time during their lives anything that could be regarded as sufficient to maintain them in a decent state of health. Yet there are countries, of which we happen to be one of the fortunate members, in the developed world who from time to time consider that they have mountains of good foodstuffs of which they cannot dispose. The reality is that the developed countries will never dispose of these food surpluses—as they are called—until such time as there is generated in the Third World, in the developing, impoverished nations of today, a capacity to consume those surpluses. If only we were to treble the existing consumpion of the Third World then the developed world, of which we are lucky to be members, would enjoy a state of wealth unprecedented in the history of mankind simply by disposing of its present surpluses at the cost of production.

Those are the economic and social arguments that can be advanced for subscribing to the fourth extension of the Food Aid Convention. But there is a very serious military aspect to this. One must be struck these days very deeply by the acceleration of the arms race. The last two years have seen a frightful acceleration in the inclination of all states, wealthy and poor, to devote more and more of inadequate resources to the development of arms with the intention of using them for the destruction of their enemies, or potential or suspected enemies. One of the enemies which undoubtedly will threaten a neglectful developed and wealthy world is the threat of the hungry hundreds of millions who are not going to accept indefinitely as their lot in this world the hunger and misery which the present world order seems to assign to them. While people might be smug enough to believe that their existing wealth and strength will prevent any world revolution against them, the history of mankind down the centuries would contradict that supposition. Again and again we have had revolutions by the dispossessed and the underprivileged against forces and powers which seem to be secure, and what happened yesterday can happen again tomorrow.

Where the alternative is to live on in misery or to strike outwards into adjoining areas of apparent wealth, the tendency for mankind, as for the animal world, is to break through the barriers which surround them and seek the promised land. Therefore, it ought to be regarded as sensible for the developed world in its own interests to help the Third World. I do not offer that as the principal reason why assistance should be given. The principal reason is obviously the moral obligation which lies on those of us who are better off to help those who have not the capacity to sustain their own life at acceptable standards; but if altruism does not move people, selfishness might. It is important that legislation should bring the argument of self-interest before people in this and every other environment in which the elected representatives of free democratic societies speak.

I therefore commend this proposal which the Minister of State has made to the House and to the people of Ireland seeking their support. It is regrettable that the number of states who have subscribed to this Food Aid Convention, 1971, is limited. I think I am right in saying that no countries from the Comecon areas are subscribers to this Food Aid convention. I know they have huge difficulties with their own harvests and serious failings in their own economic systems, and they have failed to produce surpluses which could be given in food aid to the undeveloped world. But they have the same capacity as we have to contribute money, and that is all that Ireland has to give to this food aid convention. We have not surplus food which other subscribers to this convention have. However, we should urge here and elsewhere that those who have not the surplus food grains but have the capacity to give aid—in money or in some other form—should do so as a matter of extreme urgency.

Mr. Quinn

: I wish to make a number of points on behalf of the Labour Party with regard to this motion. The Minister of State might be able to clarify some of the questions when he is replying.

This is a limited motion asking us in a sense to extend a convention for another year and we have no objection to that. We are concerned that this is the fourth extension and that the process of getting a proper short-term food-aid programme started and properly organised is not as close as we would like it to be. We urge the Government and the Minister to try to get some resolution as a result of this extension so that he does not have to come back this time next year looking for a fifth extension to the convention. I am sure that all sides of the House will support that.

Our concern is that the Community —and we relate to this convention because we are members of that Community—have not been very good in the area of food aid generally, and specifically with regard to cereals. A European Parliament working document dated 15 November 1976 entitled Document 407/76 reviews the three-year indicative food aid programme for 1977 to 1979 inclusive. It states on page 9 that the European Community alone among the major donors have not so far responded to the call for an increase in food aid in cereals. In this document the figure for cereals for 1976 is given as 1,287,000 tons, and the same figure is quoted in the speech of the Minister of State. I would, perhaps mistakenly, conclude from this document that the three-year indicative food aid programme for the Community has specified a minimum annual target of 1.650 million tons. Perhaps the Minister of State will clarify the position on that.

The Community in the view of their own parliamentarians have not a good record in the matter of increasing their supply of cereals to the Third World. Let us be honest about the attitude towards food aid in many countries. It has been seen largely as a way of off-loading surpluses to the hungry of the rest of the world without a lot of regard to the dietary needs of the hungry but with a hell of a regard to the base market price for cereals in the producer countries. The apparent goodwill of the donor countries when analysed can be seen frequently to be dominated as much by their necessity to preserve market price levels as by response to the pressure for revolutionary changes that Deputy Ryan outlined in his contribution.

The terms of this motion are specific and it is not my intention nor, Sir, your desire that we would broaden it. Having regard to this request for an extension to the breakdown of the north-south dialogue with regard to food aid generally and the obvious necessity to get an effective food aid programme of a mid-term kind operating out of the Community, with a conscious food policy as distinct from the offloading of surpluses, we urge the Minister and the Government to bring the views of this side of the House to the convention and to the various organisations involved in the food aid programme generally.

Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (Mr. D. Andrews)

: I am grateful to the various Deputies who have contributed. As was pointed out by the Opposition spokesman, Deputy Ryan, there is no controversy about what we are dealing with. In relation to the fourth extension of the Food Aid Convention, 1971, as Deputy Ryan has rightly pointed out, this is a small aspect of the overall aid programme from this country. It is, nevertheless, a very important part of our programme.

On the question of sending food aid, and aid generally, to developing countries, while some countries may not be motivated by altruism the same countries may well be motivated by self-interest. However, in the final analysis, it is fair to say that our aid programme is motivated by concern for Third World endeavour, by idealism and by a will to help the less well-off sections of the nations of the earth. But the goodwill which emanates from these countries to Ireland in the context of world aid generally cannot be under-estimated. We have a very good reputation in this regard. I agree totally with Deputy Ryan's remarks in relation to the question of world food aid and the arms race. The comparison is significant. To say the least, it is a rather horrific comparison when one recalls part of the Taoiseach's statement today which was as follows:

The world today spends about $400,000 million annually for military purposes. This is more than the total spent on education and about 20 times the total aid given by the industrialised countries to the Third World. Yet 1,000 million people lack adequate housing; 2,800 million are without safe water; and 25,000 people die every day from water-borne diseases.

That puts in perspective the comparison Deputy Ryan mentioned and which I intended raising also. It is an appalling commentary on humankind. Countries like ours who may not be militaristically-minded have a moral role to play in the context of the arms race. To this extent the Taoiseach did a good job for the world and for Ireland in pointing out the dangers inherent in the arms race.

Deputy Ryan raised the question of the number of countries contributing to the Food Aid Convention 1971. In addition to the nine EEC countries there are contributions also from Argentina, Australia, Canada, Finland, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland and the USA. Undoubtedly that is within the structure of the food aid convention. The Deputy raised also the question of whether the Comecon countries contribute. I am not sure of what they do but in any case I do not think the question arises on this motion.

Mr. R. Ryan

: I am sure the Minister would agree that Russian involvement in the wheat market has a significant impact on the availability of wheat within the markets of the convention countries and indeed within the markets of the rest of the world, too. Can he say if there is any technical objection to Comecon countries being involved if they so wished?

Mr. D. Andrews

: I have not got that information to hand but I should not imagine that there would be any technical difficulty involved. The Deputy is entitled to the information and I shall communicate it to him. Deputy Quinn referred to this being the fourth extension of the food aid convention. That is a matter of historical fact but to put the reason for this on the record I should add to what has been stated already by me in moving the motion. I understand that conference was held in Geneva from 13 February to 28 March this year. This was under the auspices of UNCTAD and was for the purpose of negotiating a new wheat agreement to replace the one which is due to expire on 30 June this year. The conference failed to complete in time the necessary arrangements and is to be reconvened in September next for the purpose of trying to ensure that it will not be necessary in 12 months' time to have to seek a fifth extension.

I understand that the difficulties encountered by the conference centred almost exclusively on certain aspects of the proposed new wheat trade convention such as, for instance, the question of minimum and maximum price levels and that there was no substantive problem regarding the negotiating of a new aid convention as such. In effect the problem is technical but we are hopeful that the matter will be resolved finally in September and that the House will not be burdened at a later date with the need to seek a fifth extension.

On the question of the amount of food the figure mentioned by me was that under the food aid convention each donor country undertakes to supply a certain minimum amount in cash or in kind which would be wheat, coarse grains or derivative products suitable for human consumption. The EEC have pledged 1,287,000 tons of wheat annually, 56 per cent of which, that is, 720,462 tons, is provided through the Community budget. Ireland's proportionate share of the cost amounts to about £510,000 which is paid through the Central Fund. The remaining 44 per cent of the Community's pledge, that is, 566,538 tons is supplied directly by the member states. Ireland's share of this amounts to 3,060 tons which at present market prices costs about £360,000.

Again, I take Deputy Quinn's point that the minimum sought on an annual basis was 1,650,000 tons. It is hoped, when the package is negotiated in September, that this figure will be settled on but in order to reassure the Deputy I would remind him that on a number of occasions Ireland has urged as a matter of urgency that this figure be reached.

I thank the Deputies for their concern and for the manner in which they have expressed acceptance of the motion.

Mr. Bruton

: Can the Minister give us any information on precisely the type of food aid involved and as to the countries which benefit from it?

Mr. D. Andrews

: As a good Meath farmer the Deputy will be familiar with the cereals concerned. These are wheat and coarse grains or derivative products that are suitable for human consumption.

Mr. Bruton

: Is it for direct human consumption?

Mr. D. Andrews

: Derivative products would not be direct, they would be indirect.

Mr. Bruton

: Is it for feeding animals?

Mr. D. Andrews

: No.

Mr. Bruton

: To what countries is it going?

Mr. D. Andrews

: To the Third World countries generally. Food aid goes to almost all the developing countries and countries which have a certain minimum GNP, for example, Lesotho. I cannot give a list offhand of the developing countries. It is like giving something off the top of my head, I might leave out some countries but I can give the information to the Deputy if he——

Mr. Bruton

: It is given on the basis of real need and not politics.

Mr. D. Andrews

: This has always been our philosophy in relation to aid to developing countries. We have taken a very strong stand and our role in this regard has been recognised. I thoroughly agree with the Deputy that it should be taken on real need rather than politics.

Question put and agreed to.