WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 1931. WORLD’S WHEAT PROBLEM

Northern Advocate, 8 April 1931, Page 4

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 1931. WORLD’S WHEAT PROBLEM

Bread is the staff of life. With-, out wheat there could not bo bread. Consequently, the subject of wheat is one with which everybody is intimately concerned. Just now practically all wheat growing countries are agitated, not because wheat is scarce, but because there is too much of it. The age-long problem of supply and demand has once again presented itself. Those who have wheat to sell are endeavouring to formulate schemes by which they may be saved from selling at an unpayable figure, and those who have to buy are hoping that prices may fall to a level which will materially lighten the burden on the family purse. A conference of wheat growers throughout the world is being held in Rome. It is being seriously exercised in its efforts to meet the situation resulting from the .surplus stocks of wheat with which agrarian countries find themselves confronted. Russia has precipitated a crisis, for she has let loose an avalanche of wheat which threatens seriously to damage the other great growing countries. So far as Europe itself is concerned, it is only a few weeks since the Eastern States were faced with a most difficult problem: how to dispose of their surplus stocks. Rumania. Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and the Baltic States met in conference to investigate a cure for the trouble from which all were suffering—an over-abundance of wheat. The Rome Conference, however, has been called to deal with the subject over a much wider field of interest. Since the war, wheat production has been increasing steadily. Between 1913 and 1928 the area under wheat in the world increased from 204,000,000 acres to 245,000,000, an increase of 41,000,000 acres, or 20 per cent. Of this addition four countries contributed 39,000,000 acres;

Canada 15,000,000; United States 14,000,000; Australia 7,000,000; Argentina 3,000,000. Europe’s contribution, was not large; re-* cords show that she simply regained the pre-war level of production. Since 1928, however, as we have indicated, the output of wheat in Europe has increased very considerably, and the various countries now have largei stocks than arc needed to meet national requirements. It is Russia which has upset all calculations. The Soviet, as part of its Five Year Plan, has improved agricultural methods to such an extent that it has a surplus of wheat, which it has sold at a dumping figure in order to obtain much needed foreign capital. A Russian professor, speaking at the Rome Conference, made this clear. He deprecated criticism to the effect that the Soviet had decided to flood the world with wheat in order _to ruin other agrarian countries, and said that Russia was stimulating production to meet her ever-increasing home demand. The cost of machinery, therefore, must be paid by her exports, which weye far below their prewar level. Russia’s development 'of wheat growing is likely, there[fore, to increase. This, of course, means that the world’s grain must either be stored and rationled to consumers or allowed a free market where the law of supply and demand would fix prices. This is the problem confronting 1 the wheat growers of the world [and which the Rome conference is attempting to solve. History teaches that the production of wheat cannot be regulated with mathematical accuracy, and that fat and lean periods may be expected in the future as they have occurred in the past. It was this fact which led the official organ of the Vatican, the “Osservatore Romano,” writing on the eve of the opening of the Rome conference, to advise the simple Bibli-cal-remedy of following Joseph’s example by garnering in fat years and storing for sale in lean years. This idea was given practical application at the conference, for a Hungarian delegate proposed the modern equivalent of Joseph’s plan; the creation of a world wheat pool to which the exporting nations would contribute quotas. A committee was appointed to examine this proposal. Upon its report will depend the policy to be formulated by the conference.