1963 5c Food for Peace, Freedom from Hunger

U.S. #1231
1963 5¢ Food for Peace  
Issue Date: June 4, 1963
City: Washington, D.C.
Quantity: 135,620,000
Printed By: Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Printing Method: Giori Press
Perforations: 11
Color: Green, buff and red

This stamp was issued in 1963 to highlight the global issue of hunger, released on the very first day of the inaugural World Food Congress held in Washington, D.C. This commemorates the Food for Peace Program, established through the U.S. Agency for International Development, which provided emergency and development food assistance to communities in need around the world. President John F. Kennedy addressed the congress on its opening day, telling attendees that the means and capacity existed to eliminate hunger and poverty from the world within their lifetime, and that only the collective will to act was still needed.

The stamp's design, created by Stevan Dohanos, centers on a stalk of golden bearded wheat set against a green background, using a simple and direct agricultural image to represent the broader goal of feeding a hungry world. The straightforward composition reflects the urgency and clarity of the message the stamp was meant to convey at a time when global food security was gaining new attention on the world stage.

Kennedy's remarks that day opened by welcoming delegates on behalf of the American people, noting that the gathering marked a return to a cause first raised twenty years earlier, when the original World Food Congress convened in May of 1943. He recalled that President Franklin Roosevelt had launched that first congress with the declaration that freedom from want and freedom from fear went hand in hand, a principle Kennedy affirmed still held true. He told the assembled delegates that the world had, for the first time in history, developed the knowledge needed to produce enough food to feed every person on the planet, framing hunger as a solvable problem rather than an unavoidable condition of human life.

The event brought together representatives from dozens of nations at Washington's Departmental Auditorium, including United Nations Secretary General U Thant, who also addressed the congress as part of the opening proceedings. Kennedy's speech that day, later recognized as one of his notable calls to international cooperation, framed the fight against hunger as a shared global responsibility rather than the task of any single nation.