Conferences

Water for human needs Second World Congress of the International Water Resources Associa-

tion, New Delhi, 1 Z- 16 December 1975.

The optimum use and development of water resources is an essential prere- quisite for improvements in our stan- dards and quality of life. This is par- ticularly true of many tropical areas where rainfall is either deficient, ex- cessive or markedly seasonal in its dis- tribution. In response to these problems, rapid advances are being made in many water related disciplines in the develop- ment of new technologies and better management methodologies to harness these resources for water supply. agriculture and energy production. New Delhi was the venue for this congress and in view of the prominent position of Indian research in water resources development this was a fitting choice.

About 600 delegates from 37 coun tries attended the congress and many UN and other related organisations were also represented. Inevitably. India was strongly represented and two-thirds of the delegates were from the host country.

The 262 papers presented at the con- gress were divided into 27 sessions covering such topics as planning, development, energy, food, health, technology, ecology, meteorology and education. Overall these papers emphasised the interdisciplinary nature of water resources management. Im- proved management methods are partly dependent on advances in particular dis- ciplines whilst decisions regarding pro- ject development have to be made in an interdisciplinary framework bearing in mind economic, social and environmen- tal considerations at national and local levels. Several papers were concerned with this topic of multiiobjective resource planning. In the USA it was shown that the two main considerations were for national economic develop- ment and for environmental quality (Barbour. USA). This immediately highlights the dichotomy between the goals of developed and developing countries. In the former, conflict is

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usually between the economy and the environment whilst in the latter, en- vironmental concern is far less impor- tant than social well being (levels of liv- ing, health and safety).

Turning to the more specific theme of the role of water management in food production, 26 papers were presented in three sessions. Irrigation agriculture, because of its potential in increasing yields and the area under cultivation has considerable economic significance in arid, semi-arid and humid areas. Even in humid areas there is a need to conserve resources and this has led to the development of more efficient water storage and distribution systems and more efficient irrigation scheduling pro- grammes. Several papers were con- cerned with this problem. Using the irn- proved methods, the Irrigation Manage- ment Service Programme of the Bureau of Reclamation in the USA has found that a saving of 35-50’~ in water use can be achieved at a net profit to farmers at relatively low costs (Campbell, Buchheim and Brower, USA).

In certain circumstances saline waters can be substituted for fresh water and Grammatikati (USSR) showed that it was possible to use highly saline underground or drainage

Hunger

water and sea water for leaching saline soils and raising agricultural crops. Us- ing drainage water containing salts up to 5 g/l, paddy rice and cotton could be grown successfully and yields of rice were almost equal to that obtained by fresh water irrigation. Sea water has ad- vantages over underground or drainage water as it contains certain useful nutrients and organic matter and is ionically well balanced. Accumulation of salts over the years in sand and sari dy soils by sea water irrigation was shown to be within the permissible level of salt tolerance since much of it is leached out during precipitation. Sea water containing salts up to I3 g/l could be used profitably for irrigation.

One lasting impression of the congress was gained during informal discussion. In countries where a large proportion of the population are hosts to parasites, a significant reduction of up to 20% in food requirements could be achieved after suitable medical treat- ment. Certainly food for thought.

I have only been able to indicate broad themes and to high-light a few of the more interesting and important topics discussed at the conference here. But congress proceedings, including all papers and edited discussions, will be published in the near future and will be available from the Secretary General, IWRA. Science Complex Building, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, Milwankee, Wisconsin, 53201, USA.

RichardD. Hey, PhD,

Lecturerin Hydrology,

School of Environmental Sciences,

University of East Anglia.

National University Conference, sponsored by the Institute for World

Order, Project Dialogue and the World Order Programme,Au.stin, Texas,

2 l-23 November I9 75.

More than 1500 miles from the con- ference venue is a unique area of about a quarter of a square mile; it has as its centre DuPont Circle and lies in the North West quadrant of Washington DC. It is unique because of its thriving network of small, labour intensive in dustries - known in America as public interest groups, and in Britain as pre- ssure groups.

The hundreds of them situated there range from the internationally known ‘Naders Raiders’ to the more specialised ‘Environmentalists for Full Employment’. In the last few years there has been a considerable proliferation of groups concerned with food issues. They tend to cover four main areas - the nutritional value of specific foods, the part played by agribusiness in the

FOOD POLICY May 1976

Conferences

draft). Speaking on the topic ‘Global Hunger and Higher Education’ Coffin said ‘let us hope that an ordeal and an agony remains an ordeal and an agony and not just an interesting dilemma. There are 460 million permanently hungry - as the charming phrase now goes - and we can’t remain indifferent to them. It’s said that professors are the strongest people in the world because they can hold themselves at arms length for a lifetime.’ Coffin ended with a caution: ‘Don’t feel guilt. We don’t want your guilt, we want you to be responsi- ble, to be able to respond’.

Topics covered by the workshops in- cluded ‘Land of milk and hunger: America’s response to its hungry’, ‘Ap- propriate technologies: is big always beautiful?’ and ‘Food for peace, profit or politics’. In the latter Tom Saylor of the Senate agricultural committee explained that US food aid is distributed under a programme created by Public Law 480. The law was passed in 1954 to help reduce the expense to American taxpayers of storing the then plentiful food surpluses. The programme pro-

vides for both long-term credit sales of food to developing nations and outright donations. About 70% of food com- modities are distributed under the credit sales programme. With dwindling food surpluses, the question of who gets the

supplies is now more crucial. In 1974, 65% of food credit sales were to Cam- bodia and South Vietnam. Congress is attempting to restructure the programme to ensure that more food reaches the genuinely needy and it was Saylor’s opi- nion that ‘the epoch is past when Public Law 480 can be used as a pay-off to countries for complying with the United States.’

Useful as the speeches and informa- tion were, the main achievement of the conference was the organisation by the regional task forces of local follow up

meetings and coordinating centres. Too many conferences have very little sub- sequent effect but in this case the large number of food organisations present had been able to link up with the activists who will run the regional networks, and SO the general feeling was that this con ference, at least, will have some prac- tical outcome.

Colin Hines

Friends of the Earth,

London, UK

rising prices and worsening quality of food, the effect of this on the poor and the ways in which US food policy can improve the world food situation.

The Centre for Science and the Public Interest is an example of one of the groups fighting for improvements in the types of food sold in America. They claim that some 3000 different chemicals are intentionally added to food, that most of these additives have not been adequately tested and that some are downright dangerous, eg sodium nitrate found in bacon and other processed meats, and Red No 2, used in many desserts and sodas.

The Agribusiness Accountability Project on the other hand function by uncovering and reporting the abuses of excessive power in the food industry, by exposing price fixing, market control and corporate farming. These practises benefit big business but are detrimental to the interests of both farmers and con- sumers. They point out that of the 32 500 food processors in the USA, a mere 100 account for 71% of all pro- cessing profits; Cambells for example control 90% of the canned soup business for four firms control 90% of the breakfast cereal market. Farmers suffer under this process because when one processor or wholesaler dominates a regional or product market, farmers have little leverage in determining the sale price of their livestock or crops. The Project states that the outcome is

that small farmers are squeezed out or forced into ‘contractual peonage’, that consumers are forced to pay ever higher prices for food, yet the companies con- tinue to make excessive profits.

During the past five years in the USA, food prices hke risen 183% faster than welfare benefits and 23% faster than food stamp benefits. This has prompted the formation of groups like the Food Research and Action Cen- tre which have, through a series of legal victories, forced the US Department of Agriculture to restore hundreds of thousands of people to the food stamp programme, who had recently been reclassified as ineligible. They also forced the USDA to begin efforts to locate some of the 20 million Americans who are eligible but as yet don’t claim food stamps.

To deal with world hunger issues, various concerned churches formed

‘The Interreligious Taskforce on US Food Policy’. This is an extention of the usual fund-raising or education pro- grammes carried out by churches and organisations like the American Freedom From Hunger Foundation. It works by coordinating the national network of churches in order to use their considerable lobbying power to en- sure Congress follows what it considers to be a responsible food policy. The taskforce was prominent in the cam- paign to reform US food aid policy in order to ensure that the countries served by it were considered much more in terms of their own food needs rather than merely to satisfy the dictates of American foreign policy.

Representatives of all the diverse food groups were given a chance to

meet up with activists from all over America, to compare notes and work out new strategies at the National University Conference On Hunger. This was the first conference of its kind and to achieve its aim the 500 delegates were organised into regional task forces, backed up by workshops dealing with specific issues and courses of action.

The speaker at the first of two, hardly modest, repasts was Francis Moore Lappe, author of the million seller Diet

for a Small Planet. This book was the first to bring to a wide audience the pro- tein waste involved in the increasing consumption of grain fed meat. MS Lappe stressed that while searching for solutions to the world food problem it is vital to avoid the pitfall of mistaking the symptom for the disease. ‘We have to realise that hunger is a symptom of a system that systematically creates hunger out of plenty’. It is this system

that must be changed, merely eating one less hamburger a week is not enough. The second temptation to avoid was relying on fear and guilt to motivate people, since these tactics often panic people into accepting any extremist policy which they feel will lessen this guilt or fear. MS Lappe concluded that, in her opinion, food was the best vehicle to get across the message of the fun- damental changes necessary to help the needy in rich and poor countries alike.

This message was reinforced by Yale University Chaplain, William Sloane

Coffin, (famed for his imprisonment in the late 1960s for providing his students with instructions on how to dodge the

FOOD POLICY May 1976