A study of international commodity organization: with special reference to international wheat agreements

An explanation is necessary at the outset as to why this particular topic was chosen, and why this approach it used. To explain all that there is to about international wheat agreements, would have made this paper too long and cumbersome. The economic considerations are included - it would indeed be difficult to discuss an international economic arrangement without including factors of price, supply, and demand - but the greater emphasis is placed on administrative organization and procedures. The purpose of this study is to ascertain the major problems involved in the organization and administration of international wheat agreements, as well as proposed solutions put forth by various authors and organizations. The entire field of international commodity control, of which wheat occupies a prominent place, has been brought before the careful scrutiny of modern political and economic writers own to a greater extent today than before World War II. There are several reasons for this increase in popularity. First, government researchers are seeking a means of controverting the practices of economic nationalism, now employed by all the principal nations. The General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade and the proposed International Trade Organization (hereafter referred to as GATT and ITO respectively) are instruments of this concerted attack. The latter organization has specifically provided for the initiation and supervision of all commodity control schemes of the future (more fully discussed in Chapter IV). Secondly, the problem of chronic suppress in a few primary products has continued to plague the large producing countries, even after exhaustive bilateral measures have been tried. Since 1933, at one time or another, the United States Government has restricted wheat acreage, provided loans on accumulated stocks, and paid cut direct warns to farms (under the pretense lasts to conservation); all of which has failed to solve the wheat surplus dilemma, finally, international agreement on trade in the primary products is believed to be a contributing factor to world peace. Since the only major commodity agreement now existing is the International Wheat Agreement, promulgated in August, 1949, it is only natural that it would be held up by the critics as a basis of judgment for any future control arrangements. An examination of previous attempts at the international control of wheat trade was necessary to understand the problems faced by the present agreement.