FOOD PROBLEM

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 May 1943, Page 3

FOOD PROBLEM

IMPORTANCE AND VALUE OF HOME GARDENS. ADDRESS BY MR B. ROBERTS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. A tremendous food problem had been imposed on New Zealand and Australia by the Pacific war, said Mr B. Roberts, M.P., chairman Of the National Vegetable Committee, in an address last night. During the three years and eight months of war, nearly 200,000 men and women had been mobilised, he said. He was sure that all men and women who were acquainted with these facts would share their burden and do a little more to help themselves, thus leaving -the market gardeners free to grow for the thousands of troops in the Pacific. Thousands of people who had not previously been gardeners could help in this great work, said Mr Roberts. To assist them, the Department of Agriculture and gardening societies in Auckland and Wellington—which was where the need was greatest—were organising a campaign of radio and other instruction to follow through the gardening season week by week. But groups of all sorts should organise to help their members to grow their own vegetables. Particularly did this apply to the preliminary digging which widows and women with menfolk overseas needed to get their gardens started. How much of this could be done depended on the amount of goodwill labour offering in any locality; __