FOOD SUPPLY IN EVENT OF WAR

Southland Times, Issue 23675, 25 November 1938, Page 12

FOOD SUPPLY IN EVENT OF WAR

Storage Of Wheat In North Island ENOUGH IN HAND FOR . ONE YEAR Behind the report that the Auckland Harbour Board has been asked to store 20,000 tons of wheat “as a national emergency” is a short history of efforts by the Wheat Committee, at the instance of the Government, to ensure that the North Island should be safeguarded against a shortage of the main agricultural product in the event of the outbreak of a war, says The Press, Christchurch. The North Island is dependent on the South Island for the bulk of its agricultural supplies and the danger to sea-borne traffic is a possibility which has not been ignored by the Wheat Committee, which controls the purchase and supply of wheat throughout the Dominion. With international affairs so unsettled, precautions have been taken by the Wheat Committee. Enough wheat is now stored to provide bread ana fowl food till the end of April and the threshing of the new season’s crops in the Dominion ensures a complete supply until the end of 1939. For some time, the Wheat Committee has been urging North Island merchants to carry at least two months supply of wheat. Some have done so. Poultry keepers were also urged to carry as much wheat as their storage and financial facilities would allow. Both the merchants and the poultry keepers were communicated with at the time of the recent crisis when the Prime Ministers* of Great Britain and France met Herr Hitler. A survey of the international situation at the present times indicates that that precaution is still, to some extent, necessary. STORAGE FACILITIES Most of the flour mills in the North Island are concentrated in the Auckland province, the two mills in Wei- 1 lington province—in the city, and at Carterton—being inadequate' in their output to supply the district, which draws its supplies, in the main, from southern mills. Only a small quantity of wheat for milling is stored in Wellington. , Auckland has not the same facilities for storage of wheat as has Canterbury, which is the granary of New Zealand, producing nearly 85 per cent, of the Dominion’s wheat. Under , the Wheat Pool, 600,000 sacks of wheat, additional to that held-in store by the millers, was stored in the South Island. The average annual consumption of Wheat is approximately 8,500,000 bushels, of which 6,500,000 bushels are converted into flour. Fo.r the 1937-38 season, the Dominion production was below the internal equirements. It was 5,395,397 bushels. For the nine months of this year ended September 30 3,076,244 bushels of wheat were imported, all from Australia, as against 648,800 bushels in the same period of 1937. So that the Dominion could be fed with wheat products in 1937, a total of 1,577,650 bushels was imported, compared with 407,141 bushels in 1936. Although‘the returns are not available for a complete estimate to be made, the interim survey suggests that a larger area of wheat will be harvested this year. An estimate is that the yield will exceed 6,000,000 bushels. . The acreage would have been higher if the weather had not been so bad for a long period when farmers intended preparing and sowing their ground. In the recent crisis quantities of wheat were brought from Australia to build up the accumulation of stocks in the Dominion, all available space on boats being used. Negotiations have already been completed for the purchase of wheat in Australia this season and the first shipment of 3000 tons, all of which will be landed at Auckland, will be made early next month. Only once in the last 15 years has the season’s yield of wheat in New Zealand exceeded requirements. That was in | 1933 when the surplus was more than 639,000 bushels. With the object of making New Zealand self-sufficient in wheat and wheaten products, a fixed price yearly is paid to growers and the importation of wheat or wheaten flour is prohibited, except under permit granted by the Minister of Industries and Commerce. Only 30 tons of flour have been imported to New Zealand so far this year.