FARMING INTERESTS

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5315, 30 January 1947, Page 4

FARMING INTERESTS

j rpHE implications of the Agri- | cultural Bill .now being debated by the House of Commons are plain, in spite of the refusal of the British Minister of Agriculture to give a firm undertaking that the Home farmer would receive first consideration on all occasions. It is less a question of prices for the overseas exporter than of j markets, for the avowed purj pose of the Bill is to encourage { home production of the food of the nation "which it is desirable to grow in the United Kingdom," and to crack down on ipefficiency • to the extent of dispossessing the bad farmer. The bias of primary production in the United Kingdom inevitably will affect our outlook here and a careful balancing of'lmports will compel either the dairy farmer or the raiser of fat stock to conform to the new conditions, ehould they undergo esse^itial change at Home, or find new outlets elsewhere. The sellers' market continues to react heavily against British and European economy, although with the world food' position adjusted, prices must tumble. There is no world shortage of wheat, for example, but because of the difficulties of distribution, famine conditions persist in many countries. The Interi national Wheat Council has | asked the United States Governj ment to arrange a confer.ence in j London to negotiate a wheat j agreement, and a message states : that another five million bushels i are going to Britain. I | Although the high hopes that t were entertained concerning the fruitfulness of the Food and 1 Agriculture Organisation that first conferred at Copenhagen in September have not - been realised, the United Nations j Economic Committee has agreed | to giving the United States and ; other countries with foo^l to ! spare direct control over where j and how it should be used, and a j World Food Council to "main- ! tain a constant review of the j world food position" has been ! recommended. Details of the proposals have not been made public as yet, but they have the approval of Sir John Boyd Orr, | director-general of the Food and j Agriculture Organisation. Earlier this month it was reported from New York that the United States had suggested to the organisation that the big food-producing countries should adopt a system of concession prices related to the purchasing countries' ability to pay. The message added that the scheme had found tentative sugport 1 from most food-exporting coun- 1 tries, which saw in it a means of : disposing of future surpluses. j Britain, however, was stated to j be strongly opposed to the plan. ! The final report of the commis- j sion, urging the big agricultural I nations to produce surpluses for ; sale at special" prices to under- ! ^nourished countries, appears to j1 *embody the American proposals. The United States has insist- j ed that food relief in future ! should be on a nation-to-nation i basis, but. while rejecting inter- j national control, it has not ; excludfed the principle of grant- 1 ing credits to countries unable ' to pay for the food they need. ! Mr. F. H. La Guardia and others ! saw in this the threat of food ! being used as a weapon of ! diplomacy. The proposed World j Food Council, even if its powers ^ are advisory rather than admin- ! istrative, should provide some | insurance against this.