The main problems identified and approaches to solutions

The primary purpose of the seminar on Population and Food and Agricultural Development convened in December 1975 in Rome by the IAAE, in co-operation with F AO and UNFPA, was to examine key issues which arose at the present time in the relationship between food production and population. Profiting from the global assessments and the recommendations made by the World Population Conference in Bucharest in August 1974, and the World Food Conference in Rome in November 1974, the seminar sought to underline the basic issues and the priority areas of study with a view to assisting agricultural economists to make a fuller contribution towards the solution of the world population and food crisis. Beside the proposals of the two world conferences, the seminar had before it six country studies (Brazil, Yugoslavia, the Republic of Korea, Indonesia, India and Kenya) and twenty-seven papers by individual authors. These studies and papers have been since edited by the Chairman of the IAAE Committee on Population and Food, Dr Douglas Ensminger, in a volume entitled Food Enough or Starvation for Millions. An official report on the seminar has been already presented by the FAO Secretariat. In supplementing this report, the present paper draws attention selectively to the critical problems identified and approaches to solutions suggested in the course of discussions in the Rome seminar.