In spite of the grim forebodings of the doomsday men and the depressing defeatism of some agricultural scientists and economists, I remain sanguine about man's capacity to feed himself in the years to come. The fact that I am optimistic does not, however, mean I am complacent. The overwhelming impression I brought away from the Rome seminar in December 1975 was that, despite the multiplicity of problems of food production and distribution it laid bare, the problems can be overcome if governments are more fully informed, better motivated and act more rationally. But act they must and act more purposefully on agricultural matters than they have done in the past.