Dominion’s Wheat Demand Rises: Production Falls

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 21, 13 February 1948, Page 8

Dominion’s Wheat Demand Rises: Production Falls

The world is still short of wheat. Record crops in America and Australia have been offset by partial failures.of the crops in Britain and the Continent of Europe. Asiatic countries, normally dependent on rice, are little better off than they were/in 1945, because rice growers have not yet been able to bring back into production land that was neglected under the Japanese occupation. In some Asiatic areas part of the deficiency is being made up with wheat.

New Zealand has long been an importer of wheat, producing about two-thirds of its needs, but since the war our- own production declined so that now we are growing only a third as much as needed. The area of wheat threshed in 1847 was the smallest threshed during the past ten years. Besides this, the consumption of wheat has increased rapidly since 1939. Before the war about 8,500,000 to 9,000,000 bushels satisfied our needs; we now require 11,500,000 bushels, and but for the fact that we have adopted the 80 per cent extraction flour, we would need’ 850,000 bushels more. So while New Zealand is continually increasing world supplies of meat and fats, it is compelled to draw more and more wheat from world supplies.