Food Surpluses: Historical Background

Abstract

Even before the First World War (1914–18), there were a number of instances when surpluses of agricultural products arose beyond market demand. Governments intervened to protect farmers’ incomes and to provide food aid to needy countries. The first major food aid operations evolved from the special post–war relief credits voted by the US Congress for the period between the signing of the Armistice in 1918 that marked the end of the First World War and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, and then for the so-called reconstruction period in Europe from 1919 to 1926, when a total of 6.23 million tons of food was shipped. The importance of this US initiative lay not only in the quantity of relief provided. It established the precedent for operations of this type involving prominent personalities, the most significant being President Herbert Hoover, and brought a general realization of the value of food aid as a politically stabilizing factor (Singer, Wood and Jennings, 1987).