Grave Cereal Shortage In Europe

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 September 1947, Page 7

Grave Cereal Shortage In Europe

(Recd. 12.15 p.m.) LONDON, September 26. The available grain from the current season’s crops would not be sufficient to maintain even the present low cereal rations of Europe, said Lord Border, chairman of the Food and Agricultural Organisation Committee on Nutrition on his return to London from the F.A.O. conference at Geneva.

Lord- Ilorder said that many people in Europe had already suffered under-nourishment for years. They needed 38,000,000

metric tons to maintain their present rations, but only 29,000,000 tons at the most would be available from the producing countries. Extraordinary new efforts were necessary.

F.A.0., he added, was hindered in its work because Argentina and Russia were not members. According to a Paris message every French farmer with suitable land must sow wheat next year and arable land used for pasture will be taxed. The French Cabinet made these decisions today in approving the plan of the Minister of Agriculture, M. Tanguy Prigent, to overcome France’s acute bread and grain shortage. The plan provides for a special tax of £8 per acre for arable land not sown in grain. The wheat sowing must at least equal the average of the years 1937-38-39. This is expected to produce a 12,000,000 acre crop. The rye sowings must at least be 125 per cent, of the average areas sown in 1944-45-46.