WORLD’S FOOD SUPPLY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 18 October 1924, Page 10

WORLD’S FOOD SUPPLY.

PESSIMISM DEPRECATED. That there has been far too much pessimism in trie past on the subject of a world shortage of food being inevitable was the view expressed by Professor R. D. Watt, in a lecture at the New South Wales Royal Society’s rooms. To Australians, he said, food shortage was almost inconceivable, yet it loomed large in the minds of many of the world’s ablest men. However, it was from a certain gloomy prophecy that they could take nope for th© future, for in 1894 Sir William Crooks had prophesied that there would be a world shortage of food in 1931; yet that state of things was far from being realised. He had also predicted that Australia would never be a, wheat-exporting country. They knew the sequel. Crooks could not be expected to forecast that the yield per acre of wheat would be raised from 12 to 15 bushels, or that we would push our Australian wheat belt further ana further into the west, as improved varities of wheat were evolved. He knew nothing, of superphosphates, which Victorian and South Australian farmers now considered just as necessary in their drills as the seed itself. He could not foresee th© passing of scythe reaping, to take an instance of old farming methods, and the triumph of the modern reaper and binder. If our farmers suddenly decided to go back to the scythe, the world would face starvation on the spot. Similarly, we of to-day could not forecast the developments of the future. We could only be certain That such developments would come.