GREAT EFFORTS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 62, 14 March 1944, Page 2

GREAT EFFORTS

FARMING IN BRITAIN

BUT MORE IMPORTS NEEDED

A description of the processes by which Britain had increased her agricultural production from about 30 per cent of her total pre-war consumption to 70 per cent of her wartime consumption was given by Mr. W. Bankes Amery, leader of the United Kingdom food mission in Australia and New Zealand, in addressing a civic luncheon in the Town Hall to-day. Six million acres of pasture land had been ploughed up, he said, and most of the marshland of the country had been drained and planted. More marshland had been drained in Britain in nine months than Mussolini had drained in the Pontine Marshes in nine years of peace. Mr. Bankes Amery also told how the people had been encouraged to grow foodstuffs for themselves and how open spaces, including bombed sites, had been put to productive use.

Pigslyes in Savile Row Savile Row, just off Piccadilly, formerly the Mecca of men's high class tailoring, was now being used as a site for pigstyes, and large numbers of pigs were being produced by London farmers in their spare time. The pigs were being fed on refuse from neighbouring London hotels. Side by side with the increased home production had been a progressive curtailment of food rations. It had been the policy of the British Government throughout the war to distribute as large rations as possible, and in the early stages of the war it had been possible to increase some of the rations, including butter, bacon, cheese and meat, but after the fall of France and during the period when ships were being sunk in everincreasing numbers in the Atlantic rations had been severely reduced. For over three years, he said, rations had been on the weekly scale of 1/2 worth of meat, 4oz of bacon, 2oz of butter, 4oz of margarine, Boz of sugar, 3oz of cheese, and 2oz of tea. In addition there was a ration of jam and marmalade amounting to lib every four weeks. The cheese ration at the beginning of this perod had been Boz, but had been cut to 3oz during the last IS months.

Shell eggs were distributed in accordance with the supply available, but the average individual consumption did not amount to more than one egg a week in the summer months, falling to one a month in the winter. Milk for Infants Britain has concentrated on liquid milk production during the war with the object of specially reserving milk for the use of mothers and young children. Babies up to 12 months old were entitled to two pints of milk a day in priority over the rest of the population, who, during the winter received only two pints a week. This was particularly hard on elderly ladies, who wrote pathetic letters to the Ministry of Food, pointing out the difficulties they had in finding suitable food. In conclusion, he stated that the health of the people had been astonishingly well maintained during live winters of privations, but. the accumulated effects of war conditions were beginning to take their toll. The people were weary of the monotonous diet, which was only sufficient to maintain health and contained no adornments to make eating a pleasure. Owing to the difficulties of production the stocks of meat and dairy produce were very low, he said, and unless exports from Australia and New Zealand could be increased there was a serious danger that meat, and butter rations would have to be reduced. A reduction in the cheese ration had been already announced. Mr. Bankes Amery expressed the hope that New Zealand exports of dairy produce and meat could be restored to approximately thenformer levels. If this could be brought about the situation would be saved, because there was no shortage of shipping with refrigeration space to carry foodstuffs to the country which had successfully withstood blockade for over four years.