Foreword

In any listing of essential human needs, food comes first. Not only armies march on their stomachs - the whole world so moves. Without food neither war nor peace can long be successfully maintained. In many crucial battle areas, suddenly overpopulated with fighting men, and in many disrupted war areas, suddenly exhausted of their subsistence base, the demand for food supplies is both real and urgent. Millions of armed men and millions of distressed civilians in Europe, Africa, and Asia need food now. Those same millions and other millions like them in the reconstructive period ahead are going to require more adequate food than they had before if we are ever to eliminate the undernourished, distressed people in the world. Whether or not we are our brother's keeper is but the humanitarian side of the practical problem we face, in that the peace of the world is, can be, and will be jeopardized by hungry, dissatisfied people.