FOOD SUBSIDY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 18955, 4 March 1936, Page 8

FOOD SUBSIDY

FOR BRITAIN'S POOR EXPERT'S HEALTH PLAN HOME & EMPIRE SUPPLIES DAIRY INDUSTRY REVIEW (Prom a Special Correspondent) LONDON, Feb. 7. A Goyenment subsidy to help the poor of the community to "'buy health" in the form of "protective foods" —milk products, eggs, fruit, vegetables and meat —was urged bv Sir John Orr, a. leading member of the British Ministry of Health's Advisory Committee on Nutrition, an address to the Farmers' Club this week. He revealed that in Britain there were 4,600,000 people who spent, on an average, only 4s per bead weekly on food, and that disease, stunted growth in children, and poor physique in adults, were prevalent among the poor as a result of malnutrition.

For them, he said, the consumption of protective foods must be increased by from 12 to 25 per cent to bring their diet up to the standard required for health. Twice that increase would be required to bring their diet up to the standard of the well-to-do classes. PAYING BY TARIFFS If the desired increased consumption was to be brought about, these foodstuffs must be made available to the poor at prices below retail prices! Public expenditure of money on unemployment and other social measure's had been well justified, and should now be extended to food. Sir John suggested that, such a' policy might be based on a system of tariffs on imports, which would partly recoup the Treasury for the money .spent on subsidising consumption and home production.

"If we could have a subsidised national food policy in the interests both of agriculture and health," he said, "agriculture will have to be developed along the lines of increasing the production of foods of special health value. By adopting a bold and generous policy of buying health and making a prosperous countryside, we would reconcile the apparently conflicting interests of the farmer and the poor people who must have cheap food, and lay the foundations of a healthier, happier race." HOME AND EMPIRE SUPPLIES Lord Bledisloe supported Sir John Orr by urging the Government to indicate what were the food requirements necessary to maintain the national health, the capacity of Great Britain and other parts of the Empire tp produce them, and the sources from which such foods of the highest quality could be obtained on an economic basis, 'the Government should then assure to the efficient (but not the inefficient) producer a reasonable margin of profit by some form of tariff protection or State guarantee.

A world-wide deficiency in the essential foods was emphasised in a report published by the Health Organisation of the League of Nations a few days prior to Sir John Orr's address. This report follows a discussion of the problem in Geneva last June, when representatives of Australia, New Zealand and the United States drew the) attention of the International Labour Conference to the dual problem of under-consuinption and over-pro-duction of agricultural foodstuffs. In a further report, the League experts urge that public nutrition ns a science should be placed on the same footing as public education —that each nation should, in other words, establish its Ministry of Nutrition. "Governments are spending money on keeping up prices by a policy of restriction," the League report declares. ''Let us impress on them that this money would be far better spent in increasing consumption."

BRITAIN'S BUTTER AND CHEESE Britain maintained her butter consumption during 1935 at the 1934 record level of 25.21 b. per head, despite a general increase in prices, it is revealed by the Imperial Economic Committee. ' Empire supplies, which were 3 per cent greater than in. 1934, comprised 57 per cent of the total imports —the highest proportion ever recorded. Foreign supplies were reduced by 5 per cent, but Home production has again increased. New Zealand, for the second year in succession, was Britain's biggest supplier, accounting for 27.5 per cent of total imports. Denmark was second was 23 per >cent, and Australia a close third with 22 per cent. Cheese consumption, however, declined from 9.51 b. per head in .1934 to 9.11 b. per head in 1935. This was duo. to a'l2 per cent decline in Empire imports, as both Home and foreign supplies have increased. New Zealand easily led as chief supplier, her total comprising 65 per cent of all imports. She sent 10 per cent less, however, than in 1934. "There is room for a great increase in cheese consumption before we reach the standards set by the nutrition experts," said Mr. 11. E. Davis, London manager of the Zealand Dairy Board, in a statement to the press. "The British Medical Association has set a standard of Mb. a week, or 261 b. a year, for adults. What is wanted, among other things, is more and better cheese cookery. A revival of the Welsh rarebit and the old-fashioned cheese savouries would be a boon to the nation's nutrition."