international food reserve

international food reserve Sec. 510. (a) The Congress finds and declares that— (1) half a billion people suffer from malnutrition or undernutrition ; (2) very modest shortfalls in crop production can result in widespread human suffering; (3) increasing variability in world food production and trade remains an ever-present threat to producers and consumers ; (4) the World Food Conference recognized the urgent need for an international undertaking on world food security based largely upon strategic food reserves ; (5) the nations of the world have agreed to begin discussions on a system of grain reserves to regulate food availability; (6) the Congress through legislation has repeatedly urged the President to enter negotiations with other nations to establish such a network of grain reserves; 91 STAT. 861 (7) little progress has resulted from the initial multilateral discussions toward the negotiation of an international grain reserve system; (8) this lack of progress is caused, in part, by lack of leadership in such discussions ; and (9) the United States is in a unique position as the world’s most important producer of foodstuffs to provide such leadership. (b) It is therefore the sense of the Congress that the President should initiate a major diplomatic initiative toward the creation of an international system of nationally held grain reserves which provides for supply assurance to consumers and income security to producers.