A FAO study distinguished between the common usage of ‘surplus’ as ‘that which remains when use or need is satisfied’ (Webster) and its economic meaning, which distinguished between ‘the intrinsic usefulness of goods (i.e., their capacity for satisfying needs) as against effective demand (i.e., the potential consumer’s ability and willingness to buy these goods at given prices and on given conditions of sale’. Supplies of commodities could, therefore, be in ‘excess’ or ‘surplus’ even though the needs of potential consumers may be far from satisfied. A Working Party on Surplus Disposal was established by the CCP in pursuance of recommendations made by the seventh session of the FAO Conference to consider the most suitable means of disposing of agricultural surpluses, including the setting up of consultative machinery and the principles which should be observed by FAO member nations.24 This led to the formulation of recommendations by FAO of Principles of Surplus Disposal, which were forwarded to FAO member governments in June 1954 and endorsed by the FAO Council at its twentieth session in September/October 1954.
The Principles are not legally binding but provided guidelines, a code of conduct, or what were called ‘consultative obligations’, for FAO member nations, and represent a commitment by 46 signatory countries. They embodied three general principles. First, solution to problems of agricultural surplus disposal should be sought, wherever possible, through efforts to increase consumption rather than through measures to restrict supplies. Second, disposal of excess stocks should be done in an orderly manner to avoid sharp falls in world market prices, particularly when prices were generally low. And third, where surpluses were disposed of under special terms, there should be an undertaking by both importing and exporting countries that such arrangements would be made without harmful interference with the normal patterns of production and international trade, by assurance against re-sales or trans-shipments of commodities supplied on concessional terms, and by the introduction of the concept of ‘additional consumption’, defined as ‘consumption that would not have taken place in the absence of the transaction on special or concessional terms’. The normal mechanism of assuring such ‘additionality’ is the usual marketing requirement (UMR) provision of the food aid agreement, negotiated between the supplying and recipient country, which is included in the contractual arrangements. Following its use in the US assistance programmes, the UMR technique was adopted by FAO in 1970. It is ‘a commitment by the recipient country to maintain the normal level of commercial imports of the commodity concerned, in addition to the imports provided under the concessional transactions’.
Food Tourism, Growing Hunger Crisis and Capitalist Ambitions
