BRITAIN DEPENDS ON NORTH AMERICA FOR MOST FOOD IMPORTS

Grey River Argus, 20 December 1948, Page 4

BRITAIN DEPENDS ON NORTH AMERICA FOR MOST FOOD IMPORTS

Minister Suggests Greater Freedom of Trading (Rec. 1.5) LONDON, Dec. 19 Mr Tom Williams, the British Minister of Agriculture, in a speech to farmers said: “The failure of a single harvest in North America could bri" - disaster. Underlying the temporary improvement that there has this year been, there is a fundamental longterm insecurity. World stocks are low, and the importing countries everywhere are having to look more than they have ever done before to the North American Continent for the greater part of their supplies. This dependence upon the supplies from that quarter is increasingly dangerous. The world’s population is rising by twenty to twenty-five millions each year', and, the food production of the world is not keeping pace the population. There are no la.vge' areas in the world that are simply waiting for the plough. Such./uncultivated areas as do exist ca,w only be developed with a great effort spread over many years; atwV we are undertaking bi/g schemes of this kind here and the're, we cannot look to them to solve; our chronic food shortage. The /solution can only he, ultimately, in a large increase in production in allfof the countries. Even so, North America will still remain the most injportant source of the world’s grain supplies, and we must look to an? improvement in the way of a free Slow of international trade, so that the countries can afford to buy whatjjthey need from America.