I AM PLEASED to announce that Acting Secretary of Agriculture John Schnittker has today signed the new International Grains Arrangement on behalf of the United States Government. We will be submitting it to the United States Senate for its advice and consent.
When ratified by participating governments, the new arrangement will go into effect July 1, 1968, replacing the International Wheat Agreement. Its duration will be 3 years.
This new arrangement, an outgrowth of the Kennedy Round of trade negotiations, contains two major provisions:
First, it establishes new minimum prices in world trade for 14 major wheats. For U.S. wheats, the new minimums are generally about 23 cents a bushel higher than under the old International Wheat Agreement.
Second, it establishes a new program under which developed wheat exporting and importing nations will provide 4.5 million tons of food grain or cash equivalent annually to less developed countries--the first time this has ever been done on a regular and continuing basis.
The new arrangement thus will provide new price insurance to U.S. wheat farmers and at the same time will bring other wheat exporting and importing nations into partnership with us in helping the developing nations of the world meet the urgent food needs of their growing populations while they expand their own food production.
Note: The President transmitted the arrangement to the Senate for its advice and consent on January 25, 1968 (4 Weekly Comp. Pres. Docs., p. 124). The text is printed in Senate Executive A (90th Cong., 2d sess.). A summary was made public with the President's statement (3 Weekly Comp. Pres. Docs., p. 1534).
Lyndon B. Johnson, Statement by the President on the New International Grains Arrangement. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/238314