The Southland Times WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1942. Britain's Food Production

Southland Times, Issue 24874, 14 October 1942, Page 4

The Southland Times WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1942. Britain's Food Production

BRITAIN’S industrial effort has received such a large share of official publicity during the last three years that most people have overlooked the fact that it has been accompanied by an equally impressive effort in agricultural production. A picture of the achievements of British farming was drawn by the Minister of Agriculture, Mr R. S. Hudson, in an Official Wireless message printed yesterday. Mr Hudson (whom the American magazine Time has described as “Britain’s most effective Minister of Agriculture in this century”) pointed out that since the outbreak of war the downward trend in agricultural production had been completely reversed by a combination of hard work and favourable seasons. The statistics are remarkable. In the last three years arable land in the United Kingdom has been increased from 12,000,000 to 18,000,000 acres. Fodder production has been doubled, enabling imports to be wholly dispensed with. There have been increases of 70 per cent, in the yield of potatoes and of 50 per cent, in the volume of home-grown vegetables. Milk production is 10,000,000 gallons higher than in the best pre-war year. Britain’s total food production supplied onequarter of the pre-war consumption; it now supplies two-thirds of the present consumption. To these figures Mr Hudson has added the latest statistics of wheat-growing. The pre-war average of 33 bushels an acre has been increased to 40 bushels, a very large number of farmers are getting more than 50 bushels and “some of our champion farmers,” 80 bushels. This year’s harvest was the biggest in Britain’s history. “Some power has wrought a miracle in the English harvest fields this summer,” said Mr Hudson, “for in this, our year of greatest need, the land has given us bread in greater abundance than we have ever known before.” The people of Britain will draw no immediate benefit from the abundant harvest. It will not give them more to eat; on the contrary, they will eat less. But they know that every extra ton of grain is a ton of shipping saved for guns. Although the revival of British farming under the stress of war is certain to bring permanent benefits, its immediate purpose is to save shipping tonnage. That is why Mr Hudson is calling urgently for greater production in spite of the results he has already achieved. The wheat acreage is to be further increased; production of potatoes and milk must rise still higher. If necessary there must be farming by moonlight to get the job done. The expansion of British agriculture is as important a factor in winning the war as the construction of merchant shipping in the United States. For both will help to provide the surplus tonnage that must be available before a second front can be opened successfully in Europe.