WORLD FOOD SHORTAGE IS CAUSED BY MEN LEAVING THE LAND

Grey River Argus, 19 August 1949, Page 3

WORLD FOOD SHORTAGE IS CAUSED BY MEN LEAVING THE LAND

(Rec. 10.40) NEW xU;vK. Aug. 17. The chronic cause oi me world food shortage was the lack of labour, rather’ than a shortage of land, said Dr Colin Clark, the Australian Economist, told the United Nations World Resources Conference today. He said that the remedy for the laoour shortage in agriculture was to allow agricultural prices to rise to a point where they offered to the farmers an income that was sufficient to induce him and his children to remain on the land. Dr Clark is engaged in a special commodity survey for the U.N.O. Food and Agricultural Organisation. He said that he was hopeful that the the world could keep pace with its growing demand for food. The modern man had shown himself to be capable of the scientific improvement of agricultural technique rais.e the output per man by 11 per cent per year. With the world’s population increasing at the rate of one per cent per year, he said, the problem was_ by no means insoluable. The most important of several qualifications to this reasoning, however, was a need to maintain the rural labour force. Dr Clark said: “In nearly every country a flight from . the land has been taking place, and it shows every sign of continuing and of accelerating. Up till now, we have been fed by the underpaid labour of peasants and of farm labourers. A new -eneration of country men is growing all over the world who are not prepared to remain at their work unless, thev can see in it economic o"”ortunities comparable to those of the urban population.” .