The Timaru Herald MONDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1945. Europe’s Coming Winter

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23319, 1 October 1945, Page 4

The Timaru Herald MONDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1945. Europe’s Coming Winter

of homeless people are roaming through Europe and there seems every likelihood that the .coming winter will he the most disastrous ever experienced on the Continent. It has been estimated that up to 12.000,000 tons of food will be required if 100.000.000 people in the liberated areas are to be saved from malnutrition with its accompanying suffering and disease. UNRRA, which will be responsible for food distribution in most of the stricken countries, has set a daily objective of 2650 calories for each person, but the possibility of reaching this goal is not assured. A report compiled recently by United States Government agencies states that provision of food is the basic problem for Europe’s wrecked economy because workers must be fed before they can begin operating coal mines, steel mills and cultivating fields. The report added that while the wartime diet of from 1400 to 1700 calories provided only a minimum existence level for the people of Europe, a 2000 calory diet provides no more than a person can live on without real hardship, disease and unrest. Europe’s most desperate needs are for products of which there is already a world-wide shortage: fats, oils, meats and sugar. There is also a wheat shortage, but it is not quite so serious. There is, however, urgent need for materials and implements for bringing the soil back into production, and there is a heavy demand also for livestock to replace that destroyed during the war.

The difficulty of the food situation is revealed by conditions prevailing in the principal countries. It is estimated that France can produce about 65 per cent of her needs as compared with about 80 per cent before the war. To supplement home supplies it will be necessary for France to import some 2,300,000 tons of food. Broken transportation to some of the urban areas has created centres of malnutrition. Military destruction of food and processing plants was not great, but destruction of transport facilities has c r entcd the major problem. The situation in French North Africa is reported, to be equally severe. The worst drought in 20 years has reduced the production of wheat with a result that an area which normally exports grain will be needing to import it in addition to large quantities of oils and fats.

Before the war the average diet in Belgium contained 2900 calories, but to-day the official ration is about two-thirds of that and even then this cannot always be met. both because of lack of supplies and the diversion of food into black markets. Among the causes of Belgium’s plight are inadequate means of distribution which affords growers a disproportionate share of food, and meagre stored resources resulting from military needs in the early part of the war. The situation in Holland seems to be the worst of all in North-west Europe. In some of the cities the Germans allowed only 350 calories a day to each person. The country was denuded of stored supplies by the Germans and since then the Dutch fields have been flooded and mined. The flooded regions grew half the country’s wheat, and barley, a quarter of its potatoes and half its sugar beet. Denmark is the only liberated country which does not require importation of basic foodstuffs and is in a position to export food. However. to aid in the feeding of Europe the Danes must be provided with ordinary farming necessities such as coal and machinery. The worst placed country of all is Poland. The, Germans had used starvation as a deliberate means of reducing the population, and the country has been so thoroughly ravaged by war that it will be impossible for food production on any aporeciable scale to be undertaken. Thus the overall picture in Europe proves only that the lives of millions of people depends solely upon the efforts of generous producing countries outside the Continent.