SHORTAGE OF FOOD IN FRANCE

Timaru Herald, Volume CLIII, Issue 22475, 9 January 1943, Page 5

SHORTAGE OF FOOD IN FRANCE

Germans Make Excessive Demands

Spokesmen for the Free French delegation in Washington said recently that they had received new advices predicting “severe food shortages” in Occupied and Unoccupied France during the coming winter as the result of poor crops and increased demand on the part of the Germans, says the “Christian Science Monitor.” The reported receipt of “reliable information” that the Germans had demanded 8,000,000 quintals—each roughly equivalent to three and one-half bushels —of wheat this winter against 5,000,000 handed over to them last year, and that France’s wheat crop would average but 50,000.000 quintals against that nation’s pre-war consumption level of more than 80,000,000. Butter production also is well under average because of a decrease in the number of cattle and the bad state of the remaining animals, most of which are underfed, they said, adding these statements: Only 63,000 tons of peanut oil remain in France against a normal yearly consumption of approximately 400,000,000 tons. Stocks of animal fats already are 44,000 tons under the level at which present fat rations can be maintained. Condensed milk is going for the greater part to the German Army, and it is feared that not enough will be left for French babies. The French look forward to another cut in their meat rations during the year as a result of a 50 per cent, drop in the fodder crop and German insistence that 50 per cent, of the remaining crop in the occupied zone be surrendered to them.