FUTURE OF BEEF

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 120, 16 November 1929, Page 12

FUTURE OF BEEF

THE ARGENTINE SHORTAGE

_ Sir. William Haldane, a member of the Development. Commission of Great Britain, has recently been discussing in the columns of- "The Times" the outlook for future beef- supplies. He points out that the British public is dependent on the Argentine for beef supplies to the extent of 40 per cent. Evidence is accumulating in the Argentine, however,- that the decline m bepf production in that country will be permanent, owing to widespread foot and mouth disease, the breaking up of best fattening pastures for tillage, and the production of more profitable crops, and the growing use of the cattle rtms for sheep, which of late years have proved more .profitable tlian-cattle. Beef exports from the Argentine in 1928 were 24 per cent, lower than the peak year of 1927 and judging from the statistics of the first three months of 1929, this rate of decline is, if anything, increasing. Speaking of England, Sir William remarks that, "in face of the conditions affecting the Argentine beef supply, it is impossible for consumers in England to expect in existing circumstances continuance of either, the quantity, quality, or low cost of the. beef.they have .hitherto so largely fed on. The position in the United; States as regards beef supply waa that barely twenty-five years since that country was pouring beef of excellent quality into.-. British ■ markets in copious supply, more.. than satisfying its needs. But in cattle, population''has gone down from 68 million in 1920 to: 55 million now, cattle being fewer, than in'" any year during the last half-century,: To-day the people of the-great Republic, enormously more numerous, are experiencing what is described as a meat famine," their consumption having, been reduced •over 15 per cent, per head last year compared with two years ago.