AMERICAN FARM RESOURCES

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27637, 19 April 1955, Page 10

AMERICAN FARM RESOURCES

EIGHTY PER CENT. OF LAND IN USE

SCIENCE HARNESSED TO BOOST OUTPUT [U.S. Information Service] WASHINGTON. The United States uses four-fifths of the land area within its continental limits for agriculture. If all woodland is counted, nine-tenths of the country’s area may be included. The total tillable land area in the United States is about 509,000,000 acres. All of Europe, except that part which lies within the Soviet Union, contains about four-fifths as much tillable land. The Soviet Union is reported to have almost as much tillable land as the United States—about 500,000,000 acres—but its agricultural production levels are very low. About one-fourth of land in the continental United States is cropland, and more than half is permanent pasture and grazing land. Though there have been notable shifts in the use of land in many localities and regions of the country, the total acreages devoted to cropland and other major land uses have remained comparatively stable since 1920. Acreages of cropland and improved pasture have increased generally in in the lower Mississippi Valley in the south, but in many parts of the northeast and southwest acreages devoted to crops have decreased. It is estimated that about 20,000,000 acres of cropland in various parts of the country is idle each year because of wet weather, drought, lack of capital, soil erosion, low fertility, or other reasons. This total, however, is gradually being decreased by improved practices. Much of this land can be. and gradually is being, improved by scientific methods of erosion control cover crops, clearing of brush and foui growth, drainage or irrigation. Aid for Friendly Powers The agricultural figures given here were obtained from the United States Departments of Agriculture, Com”?ef,ce t an 4 the Interior, and from United States land-grant colleges and universities. They help to explain America’s ability to provide immense and diversified aid to other free and friendly Powers. Th® figures do not, of course, tell the entire story. With the national population rising and the farm population decreasing, the United States could not fill its responsibilities to its people and to those of other countries without the use of the most modern scientific advances in agriculture. This and the high degree of mechanisation on United States farms complete the general success story of United States agriculture.

Even the peoples of Eastern Europe have benefited from the success of the American farmer—when the Communist regimes allow such help A recent example of this took place in Czechoslovakia. Ninety thousand Czech farm families received American maize to replace cattle fodder lost in last year s Danube floods. Twenty thousand tons of American maize valued at 1,700,000 dollars was distributed among 2,173 communities in 10 regions of Slovakia and Bohemia. ? ach received an average of four 50-kilogram sacks of high-quality maize. American flood relief food is also being distributed in East Germany and Hungary. The United States offer to send food to relieve severe shortages in Albania was rejected by Moscow and by the Communist regimes in Tirana, its capital, on the same day. '