WORLD RICE SHORTAGE

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25435, 5 March 1948, Page 10

WORLD RICE SHORTAGE

IMMEDIATE OUTLOOK UNFAVOURABLE

The shortage of rice in Asia has a direct bearing on the supply of food available in Europe and the rest of the world. The unsatisfied needs of populations which normally subsist On rice now exercise a sharp pressure on substitute foods such as grains, copra, etc. The recent reports of an improving rice supply in Burma therefore have an immediate relevance to Great Britain’s own problems. Changes have, however, taken place in the demand as well as the supply of rice since before the war, and it is necessary to consider the present position in terms of these. The population of the rice consuming areas has risen by about 12a per cent, and is still on the increase. On the other hand, world output of rice in 1947 was only 92 per cent, of the pre-war figure. Moreover, many of the people in the rice consuming areas lived, even before the war, at semi-starvation levels, so that there is no buffer to intervene between this cut in marginal supplies and actual famine.

Serious Production Falls What makes the situation worse is the fact that the most serious declines in production have occurred in the countries which normally provided the bulk of the exportable surplus of rice. Burma, IndoChina, and Siam between them supplied about three-quarters of the total world exports before the war. Since 1945 they have been producing barely 60 per cent, of the output they achieved in the thirties.

An improvement in the world rice situation—and therefore of the world food situation generally—is said by. British economists to depend directly on Burma, Indo-China, and Siam, and after reviewing the prospects of supply from these three countries, the conclusion reached is that the immediate outlook is not good. And even in the longer term there seems to be little hope that the total world supply of rice will reach the pre-war level for some years to come. In 1952, according to the estimates made by the F.A.O.’s Rice Study Group last summer, there will still be a world deficit of over three million and a half tons of rice. This takes into account the increased requirements of the bigger populations in the Far East and the European demand for rice, which at present goes largely unsatisfied.