BRITAIN LOSES LARGE QUANTITY OF FOOD ANNUALLY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 75, 12 December 1949, Page 7

BRITAIN LOSES LARGE QUANTITY OF FOOD ANNUALLY

Many people in the Bay of Plenty are among the hundreds of New Zealanders who send annually thousands of food parcels to ! Britain. From the number of appreciative letters tha tare received there is no doubt that these are well appreciated and highly prized. But despite efforts of people in New Zealand and other Dominions the people of Britain still do not get enough to eat. For this reason alone it is interesting to know that enough food is lost' annually in Britain to double the ration—if it could be rescued.

Two million tons of imported food is denied the British table every year because it cannot be properly packed owing to the cuts in eoardboard cartons. Another two million is eaten by pests. Blight Takes Potatoes

More , than 200,000 tons of English potatoes are taken annually by potato blight, virus in sugar beet captures half the potential sugar yield, and lack of adequate refrigeration plant leads to the medical condemnation of thousands of pounds of prime English meat.

a half tons of meat which represents a week’s ration for 20,000 people, was condemned in one week in London’s Smithfield Market. It had decomposed in train journeys from Scotland and Wales. Food inspectors touring Britain’s 565,000 meat and confectionery shops, scouring the holds of ships sailing here from all parts of the World, are compelled to “write off” thousands of tons of food as unfit for human consumption. Much of it can be used for animdl feeding, but a considerable proportion is a total loss. Ways and means of defeating food pests and of mobilising all food resources were considered recently at the International Congress of Crop Protection in London.

Rats—with a population ’as great if not greater than the human speies—are Britain’s most dangerdus food bandits. They eat at least 2,000,000 tons of food annually of a value of some. £40,000,000. But, the rabbit runs the rat - a close second as Britain’s Public Food Enemy No. 1. Eight rabbits can eat as much as one sheep, which needs one-third of a nacre of grass to maintain.dt for a year. And a pair of rabbits breed at th rate of 200 or more per season.

Wireworm Pest High in the list of the food bandits -'is the wireworm, which feeds on wheat and barley crops and costs the country £3,500,000 a year.

Millions of tons of food are ruined every year by tiny pests of microscopic size which breed in the holds of ships bringing food to Britain from all parts. Specially trained entomologists are employed by the Ministry of Agriculture'to fight the pests and a high official announced that they are winning the battle.

Stored grain is" now “gassed” by a special process which kills not only insects but rats and mice, leaving no residue that harms humap. beings.