SOIL AND HEALTH

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 423, 1 August 1947, Page 5

SOIL AND HEALTH

Sir,-Sir Stanton Hicks made it perfectly clear that he was not condemning outright the use of artificial fertilisers, He specifically referred to superphosphate, and he said that it was obvious that in New Zealand and Australia, in which the soils are apparently deficient in phosphates, it may be essential to continue to import phosphates if we are to maintain productivity. But he emphasised the stupidity of our present policy whereby we import at great cost phosphates from abroad, and then ex port a very large percentage of the same phosphates in the form of primary produce, and at the same time, deliberately destroy the residues of what is consumed by the local population, by burning in incinerators or pouring through sewers into the sea. Sir. Stanton argued that, if for no other reason than an economic saving, we should conserve all our organic residues and. ensure that they be returned to the soil in the form of organic fertilisers. At no time did he suggest that we should not import and use phosphatic fertilisers, but he did condemn our present practice of wasting the residues derived from the local population. The fact that Sir Theodore Rigg in his article has again accused Sir Stanton of something which he never said strikes me as being grossly unfair. At the conclusion of Sir Stanton’s address to the Royal Society, Sir Thedore made the same statement as that contained in his article, and Sir Stanton Hicks explicitly and specifically repudiated Sir Theodore’s misconstruction of his statement. Yet Sir Theodore Rigg has resurrected this argument. Sir Theodore Rigg’s concluding statement that "the use of* phosphatic fertilisers in China would increase production by at least 25 per cent." may be quite correct if he had added "for a few years." I think it is obvious that the addition of artificial stimulants to the overworked soil of China would temporarily stimulate production, just as a drink of whisky will stimulate a fatigued man. But this would only complete the exhaustion of the fertility of the soil, and within a few years, in all probability, the humus would be completely burned out, and then the Chinese would be in a worse position than ever. Sir Theodore’s comparison of the death-rate in China and New Zealand does not necessarily redound to the credit of the health of the people of New Zealand. According to the report of the Secretary of CORSO, there are only about 20 doctors to every 1,600,000 Chinese, as. compared with approximately 2,088 for the same size of population in New Zealand. When we realise the terrific over-population in China, the fearfully insanitary conditions, extreme poverty of the vast majority, and almost complete lack of hospital and medical facilities, we realise the fact that the Chinese people must have enormous resistance to sicknesses and diseases which would probably have disastrous results to the people of New Zealand. This resistance must have some relationship to their agricultural practices and the quality of the food grown thereby. Sir Stanton pleaded for a broad outlook on the whole question of "Soil

Food and Health’: Sir Theodore Rigg has attempted to reduce it to a matter of chemical fractions, representing the average scientist’s very limited and specialised viewpoint. He has completely disregarded the biological and biochemical aspects of ‘the question, I wonder if Sir Theodore Rigg would seriously suggest that, ultimately, plants, livestock and human beings could live on the contents of the bottles on the chemists’ shelves?

D. M.

ROBINSON

(Auckland).