EUROPE’S GRAIN SUPPLIES

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25301, 29 September 1947, Page 7

EUROPE’S GRAIN SUPPLIES

STATEMENT BY LORD BORDER MEASURES APPROVED IN FRANCE (Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, September 26. The available grain from the current season’s crops would not be sufficient to maintain eVen the present low cereal rations of Europe, said Lord Harder, chairman of the Food and Agricultural Organisation’s committee on nutrition, on his return to London from the F.A.O. conference in Geneva. He said that many people in Europe had already suffered under-nourish-ment for years. They needed 38.000,000 metric tons of grain to maintain their present rations, but only 29,000,000 tons at the most would be available from the producing countries. Extraordinary new efforts were necessary. The F.A.0., he added, was hindered in its work because Argentina and Russia were not members. A message from Paris says that every French farmer with suitable land must sow wheat next year, ahd arable land used for pasture will be taxed. The French Cabinet made these decisions to-day in approving a plan submitted by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr Henri Prigent). The plan, designed to overcome France’s acute bread and grain shortage, provides for a special tax of £8 an acre for arable land not sown in grain. The wheat sowing must at least equal the average of the years. 1937. 1938. and 1939 This is expected to produce a crop of 12,000.000 acres. Rye sowings must be at least 125 per cent, of the average areas sown in 1944, 1945. and 1948.