BRITISH FOOD NEEDS

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 September 1940, Page 4

BRITISH FOOD NEEDS

SIR JOHN ORR’S PLAN What are Great Britain’s-wartime needs in the way of foodstuffs? If the advice of the United Kingdom’s outstanding authority on food and nutrition, Sir John Orr, is accepted by the Imperial Government —and there is evidence to suggest that the Minister for Food, Lord Woolton, has been largely influenced by his ideas—then the programme ahead may contain some, shocks for Australia. In his latest book, “Feeding the People in Wartime”—a copy of which has just come to hand—Sir John Orr lays down a series of principles which to the practical Australian farmer, may seem revolutionary because they run contrary to what, for lack of expert guidance, our producers have regarded as basic essentials. For instance, because Great Britain’s peace-time supplies of bacon and eggs from the Lowlands and Denmark have been cut off by the invasion of these countries, it seemed natural to assume that there would be a need for us to fill the breach, and the plans of individual farmers—Australia being still without an agricultural plan—are being developed along these lines. & In this book, however, Sir John Orr points out that bacon has no particular food value which cannot be supplied more economically in other ways, and that both bacon and eggs are expensive and wasteful of shipping space compared with other foods. If this is so, then the need for enlightenment in Australia is urgent, and the continued failure of the Government to give farmers a lead is worse than folly. Sir John Orr works on the conviction that wartime food policy for Great Britain should be based on the requirements of national health, which must be improved by raising nutrition, especially among the working classes, to a new level—realising that, apart from the social aspects, any weakness on the home front caused by having one-third of the population underfed might prove as serious as if the fighting forces were ill-equipped. The most efficient way to feed the nation in wartime, Sir John Orr contends, would be to produce an increased volume of the bulky protective foods at home on the 4,000,000 acres of grassland which could be brought under cultivation, thus giving a total supply sufficient to provide an average daily diet containing two-thirds of a pint of milk, 6oz of vegetables, 2oz of oatmeal, and 16oz of potatoes.

CALORY VALUES This would be nearly up to the standard needed for good health, and a better diet than the poorest one-third of the people has at present. The necessary increase in production would be helped by the fact that nearly 5,000,000 families—half the families in England—will soon have either a vegetable garden of their own or an allotment. To supplement these basic foods, it would be necessary to import energy foods from the Dominions and elsewhere, the selection of these being worked out on a scientific-cum-eco-nomic basis. That is to say, the main consideration must be the energyyielding in thousands of cal-

ories per cubic foot of shipping space.! On this basis the principal foods are rated thus: Butter, 143; fats and tallow, 118; sugar, 83; cheese, 56; bulk! wheat, 56; dried fruits, 55; bacon, 39; frozen beef, 26; eggs, in shell, 12. Although cheese and dried fruits come lower on the list than sugar, they have greater food value, and Sir John Orr recommends that they be given precedence. The shock for Australian producers is to see bacon, beef, and eggs—all our surplus of which has been bought by the Imperial Government up to the present—being placed low on the list of priority im-.j ports on the grounds that, in addition! to being uneconomical of shipping’ space—a factor daily becoming more vital—they are relatively expensive. MILK AND VEGETABLES Many striking arguments are presented by Sir John Orr for increasing the consumption of milk and vegetables by subsidising production, and making these essentials available at a price low enough to bring them within the range of even the late Sir Henry Campbell - Bannerman’s “twelve millions who live constantly on the verge of starvation.” It is argued that, by a cash-plus-bottle-and-carry milk policy, much of the milk which formerly was diverted for manufacturing could be made available to poor consumers at about 1/3 a gallon. -- j : Sir - John Orr, whpse enthusiastic;

1 advocacy of better feeding to produce ! a contented people is so wfell known, .urges that this food policy should be I planned to carry on in Britain for the duration of the war, and three years thereafter. The complete Government control of the wholesale distribution of foodstuffs, he says, has produced economies, and permits the inI troduction of a new social attitude to- ; ward satisfying the food needs of the 1 people, a reform that he hopes may be ’ permanent. His plan has been worked I out largely on the assumption that j the demand for shipping space must ■ be reduced to a minimum, his policy I providing for a reduction of import i from 20,000,000 tons to 5,000,000 tons. It would take time to bring it fully into operation, but, being based on a set of definite assumptions, it could be modified according to the amount . of shipping actually available, and the degree of success —a degree that is already high—in getting the increased home production.—“ Sydney Morning Herald.”