Potentialities Of Food Consumption In Great Britain

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 16, Issue 31, 11 December 1950, Page 7

Potentialities Of Food Consumption In Great Britain

What are the potentialities for food consumption within Britain and are Commonwealth countries wise to develop on the basis that Britain will for all time be the main customer, is a pertinent question pounded by Mr E. Bruce Levy. Mr E. Bruce Levy, who is Director of the Grasslands Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, has recently completed an extensive tour of Europe, and he says he has had this question foremost in his mind during his studies of the food situation in Great Britain. “In discussions with the Ministry of Food in London and from experiences of eating in Britain it would appear,” said Mr Levy, “that meat will be short for many years in the Home Country, and it is a safe bet for New Zealand to develop to the full her meat production. We can increase our meat production to a considerable extent for there is much hill and marginal land in New Zealand that could be developed and put to use for meat production. Price will always be a factor and New Zealand should aim at so increasing her production that she can offer food to Britain at the lowest posible rate consistent with sound farming methods and soil conservation and with a higher standard of living for the farming people. “Price is even a more important factor when we come to butter because margarine is a strong competitor in Britain. The large majority of the people, however, prefer butter, but from my experience I can say that the margarine is of very good quality and palatability Britain’s home-produced butter Without subsidy and control ■ would. I believe, cost the consumer over double its present price (I base my calculations on the price there of liquid milk), and to the majority of people it would be a luxury. New Zealand can produce butter at a price that, I believe, would in an opgn market be acceptable—and 1 doubt if there is any other country in the world that can do this. “It is difficult to say what the consumption of cheese would be in England if abundant other foods of good quality were available, but 1 think she would take several thousand tons more than we sent in 1949, and the development of special cheeses might increase this demand.

“We have inherited a country abundantly endowed with foodproducing natural resources. As far as I can judge there is no other country in the world that can supply food of animal origin more cheaply than New Zealand. Let us intensify our grassland farming and develop our poor marginal and ploughable land and poor producing hill country, so exploiting to the full our primary industry. Fundamentally the prosperity of the Nations depends on an adequate supply of food: we of the Commonwealth can make an increased contrimution to this prosperity.”