Food First Concern

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31320, 16 March 1967, Page 17

Food First Concern

(N.Z.P. A. -Reuter—Copyrig ht)

PEKING, Mar. 15. China’s need to grow enough to feed its 700 million people has taken precedence over the cultural revolution in rural areas.

Though the latter is officially described in Peking as the greatest political movement since the Communists came to power, the nation’s peasants have been told to devote their energies instead t© spring cultivation work and the Army has been ordered to send all available troops to the fields this spring. So far increases in agricultural output have failed to keep pace with population growth, unofficially estimated at about two per cent annually. Wheat Imports In spite of wider application of advanced farming methods, continuing largescale development of irrigation and water conservancy, and big increases in both home production and imports of fertilisers, China continues to import large quantities of wheat, mainly from Australia and Canada.

Under present contracts, China is expected to import about five million tons of wheat this year, partly for immediate use and partly to build up reserves. She exports annually a total of nearly one million tons of rice to Ceylon, Hong Kong and other Asian countries, and also supplies the bulk of North Vietnam’s rice needs. Chinese food shops and markets are well stocked, but Peking is maintaining the five-year-old drive to keep the population down. Population Control

Its main features are pressure on couples to marry late and practise birth control, official encouragement of sterilisation, and abortions in hospital for anyone who applies. Young people are subjected to propaganda on the advis-

ability of using contraceptive devices which are on sale cheaply in shops, and many married couples are separated for long periods by their work.

The campaign appears to be achieving more results in big cities than in the countryside, where it has to contend with traditional Chinese pride in large families and the belief that many children provide security against poverty in old age.

Against E.E.C.—Charges that the British Government was failing to keep the public informed of the issues surrounding possible entry into the Common Market were pressed last night before an audience of more than 200 people by officers of the Keep Britain Out Campaign.—London, Mar. 15.