WORLD SHORTAGE OF FOOD

Taihape Daily Times, 7 March 1918, Page 3

WORLD SHORTAGE OF FOOD

The president of the British Board of Agriculture, addressing a large meeting of the agriculturists of Notts, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, and Derbyshire, said that as long as the present death grapple between the nations lasted the food situation was going to be most difficult. The world would be short of food in 1918 and for some time afterwards, because peace would not remove the difficulty immediately; it might for a time rather increase it. Peace could only bring us plenty if we could return to pre-war conditions in three important particulars—firstly, that there should be a surplus of the world’s supply on the market abroad; secondly, that 1 should have the money to pay for it; and, thirdly, the tonnage to bring it home. A new danger, not unforeseen, was that the soil of Europe was losr its fertility. He was not a financial expert, but he had known this, that the financial position of this country was very strained, and showed itself in the foreign exchanges. How could we, then, bear any additional strain on our finance? How CouTcT we get the ships when our own tonnage and the tonnage of the whole world was enormously reduced? He had put the facts with studied moderation, and he did not want to excite exaggerated panic; but what he had been outlining was not surmise. How long would the shortage last, and how acute was it going to be? If he could answer those questions his task would be comparatively easy. Two plentiful harvests might make a world of difference. We could not tell how far the efforts of France and Italy to arrest the decline in their food production would be successful. Neither could we tel] how far the efforts of the United States and Canada to increase their output might succeed. We could not tell at what period of the year war mght cease. We could not base the nation’s food upon uncertainties. It was better to look at available remedies. What were they? The first was economy. This w r as a national duty of the highest importance. Then we must grow every ounce of food it was possible to grow at home.