FACTORS IN WORLD SUPPLY SHORTAGES

Chronicle (Levin), 11 September 1947, Page 5

FACTORS IN WORLD SUPPLY SHORTAGES

Received Wednesday, 7 p.m. LONDON, Sept. 10. The problem of the world 's present shortage of fats and oils which he estimated totals 4,000,000 tons annual1}-, was reviewed by Mr. Geoffrey Heyworth, president of Lever Brothers. He plaeed world production at 2,500,000 tons below the prewar figure of nearly 20,000,000 tons and increased requirements, due to the world population having risen by S per cent. since 1939. at 1,500,000 tons. The shortage, said Mr. Heyworth, was caused by a number of factors additional to the ell'ects of the war. Prodncing countries were consuming the greater part of their own production, there was an increase in milh drinking, and there was a serious decline in Western European production. The shortage of animal feeding stuffs and the likelihood that an improvement would be slow, meant that it would be a long time before European production of butter and lard could be brought up to the prewar level. An other factor was the international whaling agreement restricting the season's catch. During the 1946-47 season this was 320,000 tons compared with 500,000 tons during the prewar season. Mr. Heyworth said that supplies of fats and oils could be increased but the proeess would be slow. Among steps which could and should be takeu was the operation of Government controls to improve terms of trade by a more effective eombinatiop. in the pur-v chase of raw materrals'. Hep'ointqd' biit . that Governments, in the'ir anxiety to maintain supplies, probably paid a . mucl higher price than the publie itself would pay. For . example, the price that Britain paid for the last 10 per cent. of her supplies of oils and fats, . excluding linseed oil, was more than three times the price of the remaining 90 per cent. European Governments were paying in some markets seven or eight times the prewar level and he . could not believe the public itself would consider suea a level justilied even with the present supply position. Mr. Heyworth was emphatically of opinion that the earliest abolition of subsidies on food was essential and that the change should be made now in Britain. Supplies, he continued, should also be increased by higher home prodnc- 1 tion in Western Europe as well as overseas. There must also be additional production by cultivating unused tracts of land as typified by the East African groundnut scheme. This scheme would take six years to come into full fruition when it was expected to produce oil equivalent to 250,000 tons annually. Big as the scheme was the quantity would not fill the gap caused by India's partial withdrawal from the export marlcet. A number of schemes of that magnitude must be undertaken and even if taekled now, it would be two years before they could begin to show results.