World Hunger 1978 General Resolution

WHEREAS, half a billion of the world's four billion inhabitants suffer from malnutrition and another billion do not have a proper diet; and

WHEREAS, the developing nations of the world have not been able to increase their food production to a point where they can keep up with their needs for food; and

WHEREAS, the World Food Council estimates that the developing nations must increase their food production by at least 4.3 percent a year if their food import costs are not to reach prohibitive levels by 1985; and

WHEREAS, key questions regarding foreign aid include: How do the rich countries help the poor in poor countries? How do the developed nations get aid filtered down to the rural areas to help improve nutrition on the rural level?; and

WHEREAS, existing agricultural production in developing nations has often been exploited for profit rather than to satisfy the nutritional needs of the majority; and

WHEREAS, trained personnel could go out on the local level to help others develop their land agriculturally to enable them to become more efficient in food production;

BE IT RESOLVED: That the 1978 General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association urges the governments of the United States and Canada through their appropriate agencies to work with the United Nations and other international organizations for the establishment of training facilities in developing nations which rely on importing food in order to feed their people. Such centers should emphasize the use of indigenous technicians and methodologies to work with small farmers to teach appropriate technologies which minimize the need for capital, energy or pesticides, all with the basic goal of producing food to satisfy their own national and regional nutritional needs.