BRITAIN’S NEEDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 July 1940, Page 9

BRITAIN’S NEEDS

MORE EGGS AND BACON CALL TO NEW ZEALANDERS. effect of war conditions IN ENGLAND. The problem presented to British farmers under war-time conditions was set out in a recent number of "The Farmer and Stock-breeder.” Pig and poultry producers were advised to plan their production programmes for the next twelve months on the basis that the proportion of their feeding stuffs derived from imports would be reduced by at least one-third as compared with the normal pre-war years. The maintenance of the milk supply was a matter- of primary importance and in consequence, every effort would be made to provide adequate supplies of feeding stuffs for dairy cows. The pig and poultry industries, it was pointed out, were particularly heavy users of imported grain and cereal products and the necessities of the position made it imperative that economies had to be secured in the main by a reduction in the supplies of feeding stuffs available for these industries. With common sense, it was stated, the hen could be fitted into the scheme of wartime food production and the genera] farms, which carried the majority of the country’s hens, would be able to improvise rations to supplement what the hens could find for themselves. The position called for a full review by each farmer of his own position and decisions would naturally have to be made in the light of facilities for supplementing the reduced supplies of feeding stuffs. It would be contrary to private and national interests to take too gloomy a view, it was pointed out, and to rush into anything like panic slaughter of breeding stock. It can be appreciated by New Zealanders that in addition to the lestiictions on the poultry industry in Britain, the loss of supplies of eggs from Denmark, which were considerable, places Britain far short ot requirements in eggs. It is in an cflort to balance the position that New Zealand farmers’ wives have been called upon to keep more fowls and increase egg production. Much the same position applied to the pig industry.