WORLD'S WHEAT SUPPLY.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 273, 22 December 1914, Page 11

WORLD'S WHEAT SUPPLY.

AN INTERESTING REVIEW.

Australia is confronted with the question whether the harvest now being reaped will provide bread to last until next harvest, and seed wheat to sow for that harvest. It is generally admitted that there is not likely to be much for export. Bound up with the wheat production of the Commonwealth is that of the world, because upon that depends the price of bread, states a Vietorian writer in the "Australasian."

So far as the available evidence goes, it points to the certainty that this year's crop will not in itself suffice for our needs, but there is a balance from last harvest which will at all events go a great way to supply the deficiency. But both the probable yield and possible balance are largely matters of estimate at the moment; indeed, the probable yield is as much a matter of guess as of estimate. Nobody can tell what amount of grain the ears now waving in the wheatfields of the Commonwealth contain, but we know that the stalks are stunted, the crops are thin, and that the ears are short. The crops, as a whole, have never stooled out in the earlier stages of their growth; they have never at any stage had enough moisture; they have been forced to early maturity by dry, warm, and sometimes hot, weather, when it should have been cool, moist, and genial; in a word, they have never had a fair chance.

Still, various authorities in every State have made their calculations as to what we may expect, and have issued progress reports. They do not provide reassuring reading. In our. own State the Government statist has not published his forecast, but the railway commissioners have; the large wheat firms have made their own estimates from their own data, and, so far as the conclusions of all these authorities go, we may put it that the discrepancy • between the lowest and the highest is approximately one million bushels. Our railway commissioners have within the last few days published their opinion Victoria's total wheat yield,will be' about 3,987,000 bushels. The "Argus" and the "Australasian", come very near this; they, in their joint investigation, decide'that we'may ex- ; pect 3,974,000 bushels. The Agricultural department gives a general statement that the harvest will be a 4,000,000 bushel one, and, coming to private experts, we get estimates as high as 5,000,000 bushels. Everyone can hope, even in the midst of doubt, that the optimists may be right. In the other three wheat-exporting States of the Commonwealth similar forecasts have been made concerning the supply, and unfortunately, the unanimous opinion is that the total, yield will be low. Some of these calculations were made more than a month; ago, and it was pointed out that the figures were subject to alteration —in' a downward direction—if the weather continued dry. The New South Wales statist, for instance, qualified an estimate of 14,000,000 bushels for his State by pointing out that rain must fall within a week or so to give that total. The rain did not fall within the time stipulated; it did not fall within a month. To-day private firms do not expect more than 11,000,000 or 12,000,000 bushels. What is stated of Victoria and New South Wales applies to others as well, therefore, a rough approximation of the Australian yield may be set out in tabular form, giving the lowest l &nd the highest estimates:—

Bushels. Bushels. Victoria ...... 4,000,000 to 5,000,000 New South Wales. . i 1,000,000 to 12,000,000 South Australia . . 5,000,000 to 6,000,000 Western* Australia 3,500,000 to 5,000,000 *Queensland and Tasmania- . . 2,500,000 to 3,000,000 26,000,000 to 31,000,000 * In Queensland and Tasmania ing is not followed on a large scale; neither produces enough in normal years to supply its own requirements. As uncertainty cannot be dissolved until the strippers and harvesters have given their verdict, we may take the mean between the higher and the lower figures, and place the total Australian harvest at 28,500,000 bushels. The probable balance from last harvest is difficult to estimate, as each State has a different method of book-keeping; but a reasonable forecast may place the quantity at about 8,600,000 bushels at the end of the year. Adding this to 28,500,000, we get a grand total of 37,100,000 bushels, to supply flour and other foodstuffs derived from wheat, and seed for 1915.

; In estimating the probable requirements for consumption during the year,, the old rule of 5-| bushels per inhabitant will not be too high. This, for 5,000,000 people, will, absorb 26,400,000 bushels. This year approximately 8,000,000 bushels were sown, but, as the Australian State Government are urging their farmers to sow as large an area next year as their resources will enable them to do, and as wisdom itself dictates that course, it will not be inflating the probable total if we add a quarter to that of last year's, and place the seed requirement at 10,000,000 bushels. Assuming all this to be correct, the Australian community will use up 36,400,000 bushels of wheat, out of n total of 37,100,000 bushels available, and there will be 700,000 bushels for export. Will that be enough? Probably a little export will be permitted to our exclusive customers in the Pacific possessions and South Africa, and, as it was announced weeks ago, that New Zealand expected she would have to import, we may be asked to send a little wheat or flour thither. But 700,000 bushels will not go very far. The position of the Commonwealth appears to be that, with crop and the last year's balance, we may have enough to last out, with care, supposing present expectations be.realised. But, supposing those expectations are not. Supposing we have only 26,000,000 bushels in our harvest, instead of 28,500,000? It will mean that soon after sowing is finished we must begin to import, and every bushel of wheat, every ton of flour, will have to be paid for at a higher cost than that at which we can produce; and there will be dear bread. The war lias raised the problem of how the . world is to secure its bread. About 52 per cent, of the world's wheat is grown in Europe in times of peace, and the countries now at war grow about 36 per cent, of it. England, France, Russia, Austria, and Germany are at war; the Balkan principalities may become involved, and these countries are also growers of wheat. In

England and Russia there will be wheat grown, because neither country has yet put forth its full military power; but Germany has nearly all her available men now in the field, guarding her communications, 01* doing other work directly connected with the war. The same may be said of France. The bulk of the crops which have been sown in those countries, or will be sown during the next three months, must be put in by the old men and young boys, assisted by the women. There are not enough hands to go round in sowing a full crop; and there is always the possibility of the devastating tide of war rolling across the fields. Especially is this true of Germany. Therefore, other countries must supply the wheat, unless famine is to follow, not only in the track of the war, but in the regions around it. A glance at the world's wheat normal supply is:— 1914. 1913. Bushels. Bushels. Europe .. 2,099,282,000 2,339,728,000 America .. 1,283,200,000 1,145,840,000 Asia .. .. 356,000,000 407,056,000 Africa . . 60,600,000 70,072,000 Australasia .. 34,900,000 108,216,000 3,833,982,000 4,070,912,000

These figures for each of the great continents except Australasia (which includes New Zealand) are taken from f \ ( Dornbusch,''. and it will be noticed that for the harvest of 1914 they are very much in round numbers. It will probably be impossible ever to obtain absolutely reliable data on which to estimate the harvests of ' Germany and Austria, but the approximation will suffice for the present argument. For America the figures embrace both the North and South continents; for Africa also they include both the northern and southern portions. There is one outstanding fact to be noted in them—in every one of the great divisions of the globe, exeept America, the harvest of 1914 is lighter than that of the preceding year, and the shortage on that account alone approaches 237,000,000 bushels. Incidentally it may be mentioned that this has some effect, even now, on prices in Australia. The two great factors—decrease of production in Europe and the comparatively short harvest of 1914—have been noted all over the world, and all over it wheatgrowers have been strongly advised to make special efforts to increase their acreages of wheat, because of the probability of good prices ruling for the crop when it is harvested. A writer in one of the United States agricultural journals remarks: — "Europe imports 500,000,000 bushels of wheat annually, and of this Great Britain requires 200,000,000, and Germany's wheat crop is over 150,000,000 bushels short of consumptive requirements this year. France can supply her own needs, while Russia, with exports of 150,000,000 bushels annually, is not likely to dispose of any part of her crop, both because she cannot and dare not do so at this time. It remains, then, for the United States and Argentina to supply the world's shortage. Of this supply, from our reported present crop of 930,000,000 bushels, it is estimated that we can spare.. 300,000,000 bushels, and Argentina half as much, making 450,000,000 bushels,- or 50,000,000 bushels short of normal requirements. ... It therefore would seem to be the part of wisdom for the American farmer to prepare every acre of land, in the best possible manner to grow the crops to mature next season. ... It is now up to us to prove what America, and particularly the great grain-growing and meat-produe-ing States of the north and west, can do to feed the world."