Feeding the Englishman

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 285, 2 December 1939, Page 5

Feeding the Englishman

Britain’s Dependence Upon Imported Foods

WORLD DEPENDENCE UPON BRITISH MARKET An idea of the way the Englishman is fed was conveyed to members of the Citizens’ Lunch Club yesterday by Dr. C. P. McMeckan, of Massey College, who gave a behind-the-scenes description of a large retail branch of a wellknown chain store organisation specialising in the provision of high class food to the great middle class of England in a small country town. While in England, Dr. McMeekan had the opportunity of seeing daily over a six-month period this distributive side of Britain’s food supply. Three indelible impressions remained with him from this experience: The vast range in quantity and quality of the food available; the great dependence of the whole world upon the British market; and the great dependence of Britain upon imported food. Each morning at 5 a.m., four four-ton trucks drew up to the back entrance, laden with the day’s supplies from London. Food in the “pink of condition,” handled cautiously and scientifically from all corners of the globe; food that in its production gave work and life to countless thousands of farmers of all races, colours and creeds; that provided a living for further countless numbers of men in transport, processing, manufacturing and marketing; food that was vital to the very existence of the people of Britain. Four Foods from Sixteen Countries. Each morning, beef, fresh from the fields and byres of Ireland, Scotland and Wales, chilled from Argentine and Brazil, frozen from Australia and New Zealand; mutton and lamb, fresh from homeland farms, frozen from New Zealand, Australia, Argentine, Uruguay, Patagonia and Iceland; pork from Rhodesia, Australia and New Zealand; bacon from Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Northern Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Canada and United States; bacon from New Zealand and Australian frozen pigs cured in English factories; eggs from Canada, South Africa, Holland, D. and Sweden; rabbits from the fields of Britain and the stations of Australia; turkeys and guinea fowls from Bulgaria, Rumania, Argentine and United States; butter from Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, South Africa, Siberia, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and South American States; eheddar cheese from Australia, Canada and New Zealand; cheese of endless varieties from Switzerland, France, Holland, Sweden and Denmark.

Four foodstuffs only—meat, butter, cheese and eggs—yet sent by 16 countries spread over the globe! Twenty others sent special and luxury foods in great quantities. Sixteen tons of food daily, six days a week, pass over the counters of this one shop to feed a small segment of the people of a small country town; food of every conceivable type from every conceivable place; food at prices to suit every pocket; food of the quality demanded by the most critical stomachs in the world. From this brief list one fact above all others emerges; the dependance of England upon imported foodstuffs. Middleton in the book “Food Production in War,” made this significant comment: “At the ordinary rato of consumption of the years before tho war, the produce of our soils spread evenly over the 52 weeks suffice to feed us from Friday to Monday morning.” There was every reason to believe this picture was even more true to-day than in 1914. Even this was not tho whole story, for much of the 35 per cent, that was home produced was due to tho import of vast quantities of feeding stuffs for the maintenance and production of British livestock. British home production of milk, meat and eggs, was largely derived from this source. Twenty-live per cent, of the total food eaten by British stock was imported—ono feed in every four. British crops also were benefited materially from the added fertility which these imported materials brought to British soil. A conservative estimate would place this at an addition annually of 30,000,000 tons of dung. Feed sent to England thus fed not only the people but tho stock and the land. Two ships daily, each of 10,000 tons, were needed for these vital animal foods alone. A further three ships daily of similar size must dock to land the four main foods used directly by the people—wheat, meat, butter and cheese. This made a total of one ship of 10,000 tons capacity every five hours throughout the year. Add to this the shipping necessary for all other foods, for raw materials, for manufacturing and transport and the extent of the supply problem under wartime conditions might be visualised. The Present Crisis. How Britain would faro during the present crisis, history alone would tell, but the experience of the last war gives information of interest. 111 1914 Britain could feed herself only for the week-end. At the end of 1918 she could not even do that. Despite colossal efforts to increase production, the net effect, in tho word of {Sir Henry Rew, secretary of the Ministry of Food, was “a set back to food production. By special effort the amount of cereal foods increased slightly, but there was a marked decline in other types, particularly milk and meat.”

Grassland Ploughed. Actually 3,000,000 acres of grassland was ploughed. Wheat increased by 2 per cent, over tho war period and all other grains by 10 per cent. Roots and hay declined by proportionate amounts. Milk declined by 400,000,000 gallons a year; beef and mutton by 170,000 tons and pig meat by 200,000 tons. A women’s land army of 17,000 and allotments of 275,000 helped materially in preventing a still greater decline.

This failure was duo mainly to short-i age of labour and to markedly reduced * stock food imports. Men were required

in the firing line and ships had to bring the finished product, not the raw material. Not since the “hungry forties” had the townsmen of England realised the extent to which they depended upon the land. As Middleton wrote: “As the crops of 1917 ripened it was not tho farmer and corn dealer only who watched with painful anxiety the state of tho weather.” There had never been a year in which the townsman felt so anxious about his daily bread as he did in the summer of 1917 when he was being adjured to eat less of it; and it might be added there had never been a year in which the quality of the bread made this injunction more easily obeyed. There is no reason to suppose to-day that history would tlo other than repeat itself and food production in Britain would again decline in the present struggle. Once again her staying power would be determined by tlio extent to which Dominions, colonies and friends were successful in producing and exporting to her, food she must have to survive. With the certainty of considerable losses in transit, the need for increased supplies was evident. Therein lay our task; probably our most important task in this war. “It is a work that requires far more than patriotic exhortations; it requires drive and organisation as never before; it is a job that is the personal concern, not merely of the farmer, but of every responsible person in the Dominion,” Dr. McMeekan declared.

“We in New Zealand have a wonderfully productive and bountiful country; a heritago which we have both honoured and abused; a land whose capacity wo have developed and squandered. We have to-day millions of acres raised to a level of productivity equalling the world’s best; we have also millions of acres of land fast deteriorating to a useless state. This situation presents a challenge which we cannot afford to ignore. Tho extent to which we honour or abuse our land will determine our ultimate right to nationhood and a free and independent existence. “Our welfare agriculturally is dependent upon the welfare of our livestock industry, from which our wealth is derived and by which the fertility of our soils is maintained. Tho welfare of stock demands a largo supply of competent labour. Lacking a high degree of personal care and attention from man the farm animal declines in productivity and quality. Returning to New Zealand after a three-year absence my outstanding impression in this connection is the sign on every hand of the short term effects of an inadequate labour supply upon our animals. It is my hope that we will, before it is too late, arrest this tendency and avoid the catastrophic consequences of long term effects, ” Mr. McMeekan concluded.