Message to the Congress Transmitting the Annual Report on the Food for Peace Program.

To the Congress of the United States:

The annual report on activities under Public Law 480--which I transmit herewith--reflects the efforts and progress made during 1969 toward the Food for Peace Program's dual goals of agricultural trade development and assistance.

Food for Peace, which completed its fifteenth year of operation during 1969, is a landmark among humanitarian efforts to improve diets in the developing areas of the world. It plays an important part in the work of developing nations to improve their own agricultural production, marketing, and distribution. Although many of these countries are becoming better able to feed their people, the need for substantial food assistance continues.

The Food for Peace Program enables the United States to pursue its food assistance goals and development objectives in a number of ways: bilaterally, through concessional sales programs and government-administered donations programs; privately, through religious and charitable voluntary agencies such as CARE; multilaterally, through institutions such as the World Food Program.

In addition, local currencies generated through Title I concessional sales and received through repayments of earlier loans continue to provide balance of payments benefits to the United States by permitting expenditures of U.S.-owned currencies rather than dollars in many countries. Such currencies have also been used to finance projects undertaken to increase our commercial sales of agricultural commodities, and thereby helped to develop an increased market for U.S. agricultural products. These projects helped in 1969 to reverse the downward trend of U.S. farm exports in recent years.

The Food for Peace Program enables the enormous technological capability and productive capacity of American agriculture to be utilized to assist low income countries in developing their agricultural sectors, and in feeding their citizens while they still require outside help in doing so. This Administration pledges to continue its efforts toward achieving the goals of this program.

RICHARD NIXON

The White House

June 18, 1970