Public Law 98–110

Joint Resolution

To authorize and request the President to designate October 16, 1983, as “World Food Day”.

Whereas hunger and chronic malnutrition remain daily facts of life for hundreds of millions of people throughout the world;

Whereas the children of the world are those who are suffering the most serious effects of hunger and malnutrition, with millions of children dying each year from hunger-related illness and disease, and many others suffering permanent physical or mental impairment, including blindness, because of vitamin and protein deficiencies;

Whereas although progress has been made in reducing the incidence of hunger and malnutrition in the United States, certain groups, notably Native Americans, migrant workers, the elderly, and children, remain vulnerable to malnutrition and related diseases;

Whereas the danger posed by malnutrition and related diseases to these groups and to other people is intensified by unemployment and slow rates of economic growth;

Whereas national policies concerning food, farmland, and nutrition require continuing evaluation and should consider and strive for the well-being and protection of all residents of the United States and particularly those most at health risk;

Whereas there is widespread concern that the use and conservation of land and water resources required for food production throughout the United States ensure care for the national patrimony we bequeath to future generations;

Whereas the United States has always supported the principle that the health of a nation depends on a strong agricultural foundation based on private enterprise and the primacy of the independent family farm;

Whereas a major global food supply crisis appears likely to occur within the next twenty years unless the level of world food production is significantly increased, and the means for the distribution of food and of the resources required for its production are improved;

Whereas the United States, as the world’s largest producer and trader of food, has a key role to play in efforts to assist nations and peoples to improve the ability to feed themselves;

Whereas the United States has a long tradition of demonstrating its humanitarian concern for helping the hungry and malnourished;

Whereas efforts to resolve the world hunger problem are critical to the security of the United States and the international community;

Whereas the Congress of the United States is acutely conscious of the paradox of immense farm surpluses and rising farm foreclosures in America despite the desperate need for food by hundreds of millions of people around the world;

Whereas a key recommendation of the 1980 report of the Presidential Commission on World Hunger was that efforts be undertaken to increase public awareness of the world hunger problem;

Whereas the member nations of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations designated October 16 of each year as World Food Day because of the need to alert the public to the increasingly dangerous world food situation;

Whereas past observances of World Food Day have been supported by proclamations of the fifty States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and other territories and possessions of the United States, by resolutions of Congress, by Presidential proclamations, by programs of the United States Department of Agriculture and other Government departments and agencies, and by the governments and peoples of many other nations; and Whereas more than three hundred national private and voluntary organizations plan to participate in World Food Day observances this year: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

Approved October 3, 1983.